Author Archives: Josh Ambrose

Do you think that reanimation is a greater impossibility for Shelley’s audience or today’s science-informed one? I’m not sure which is the bigger leap. In fact, I think Shelley’s audience might have accepted the plausibility of it in a way that we simply would not.

Do you feel like we’re still trying to harness the “power” of the natural world, or is that day now over? Continue reading →

I’m intrigued by the moral judgment here–as Prof Sample talked about in class today, words like “decency” and “responsibility” have a lot of weight to them.

I agree with your assessment, for what its’ worth! My question is this–what do you think Shelley is trying to communicate through this depiction of an “inhuman” protagonist? Is she commenting on science? On exploration? On religion?

Or is that reading into the text too much? Continue reading →

Good observations here. Like you, I was amazed how quickly Frankenstein distances himself from his creation in the book.

Obviously, the movie sustains a very different tension between the two–a much slower descent into horror, as it were. I’m interested to hear what you think of Shelley’s pacing in contrast as we read the rest of the book. What is the impact of her narrative choices as we read a long story where the monster has already been unveiled and judged abhorrent? Continue reading →