#long version is long

[incomingalbatross]

What was your Frankenstein essay about?

Short version: narration and its limits!

Longer version: there's a bit in the closing chapters that made me stop and go HMMM

Frankenstein discovered that I made notes concerning his history: he asked to see them, and then himself corrected and augmented them in many places; but principally in giving the life and spirit to the conversations he held with his enemy. “Since you have preserved my narration,” said he, “I would not that a mutilated one should go down to posterity.”

When the Extremely Biased Guy asks to go back and edit his conversations with the creature he's Extremely Biased Against (with excellent reason by this point, but STILL), it kinda makes you wonder.

So I talked about how with this paragraph Shelley kinda highlights the fact that we are ONLY getting the Creature as mediated through Victor's narration. And, in a way, that's a credit to Victor! He didn't have to convey the Creature's eloquence and claims to unjust treatment and suffering to Walton. But he did. He did it well enough that lots of readers find Victor's enemy more sympathetic than Victor.

HOWEVER. There are still points where Victor's Creature is pretty dang unsympathetic, like when he kills a child and says he was "exultant" about it, or when he framed Justine for murder because "if she ever saw me, she'd reject me," and generally in his complete lack of remorse for any of his crimes. And THIS is relevant in light of the note about Victor controlling the narrative, because... eventually, basically the second Victor dies, we and Walton get to meet the Creature in an encounter NOT mediated by Victor.

And the Creature (while still self-pitying and self-justifying a fair amount of the time) is violently remorseful for his murders.

Now, even this doesn't establish Victor decisively as an untruthful narrator! The Creature might ONLY feel remorse for killing Clerval and Elizabeth and Victor (weird if so, but possible). He might have had a change of heart since he last spoke to Victor. OR he might have felt remorse all along and censored himself while talking to Victor, to keep up a front, in a way he didn't feel obligated or able to do over his dead body.

But there IS a disconnect. Even more fun, formally, is that Walton very clearly represents Victor's audience; he calls out the contradictions between Victor's portrayal of the Creature and the evidence in front of him multiple times, accusing the Creature of being insincere and hypocritical because Victor said he had no qualms before. But THEN. In the end. the last page or so of narrative is the Creature monologing, like he did to Victor before, and Walton's narrative voice just... fading out of his way. When he's done talking we get:

He sprung from the cabin-window, as he said this, upon the ice-raft which lay close to the vessel. He was soon borne away by the waves, and lost in darkness and distance.

And that's it. REALLY neutrally phrased. No descriptors like "fiend" or even "being," just "he." No commentary or reflection on his actions. Just bare-bones description.

So it's like... Victor was controlling the narrative all this time, you know? He did convey the Creature's narrative, but still nested within his commentary and reactions. He tells Walton adamantly on his deathbed that the Creature is irredeemable and needs to be killed. And like.... he might be right. But we can't KNOW.

And the ending highlights that we can't know. The second Victor dies, his narrative control slips just like his literal control of the Creature fell apart the second he animated him. The Creature shows up to represent himself directly, over Victor's body, and talks Victor's main audience in silence with his own account. And then he leaves. We'll never know more.

So my essay didn't reach a lot of assertive conclusions about Frankenstein (and probably downplayed my own overall judgment of the Creature, in the end :P), but I wanted to look at the ways the book keeps us from solid, assertive conclusions. It highlights the limitations of what knowledge we can get from first-person narratives, and then just... leaves us at those limits. The Creature escapes into darkness, and we have no way to know more about him than what Walton heard from Victor and from him.

[oolong---latte]

[nonetoon]

[wanologic]

💅💅💅

[shopwitchvamp]

“Omg, I love these! They go up to size 6X AND they have pockets?! Wow!! But do you have anything longer?”

Sure do, no problem!!

“YES these are great!!! But what about.. longer?”

I gotcha!! Comin’ right up!

“Perfect! But I have just one more question… what if I’m feeling spicy? How about skirts that are even shorter than the first ones?!” Oh, you’re in luck! We’ve got minis now.

*wild cheering* /scene

🖤witchvamp.com🖤 (ᴾˢ: ᴸᵒʷ ˢᵗᵒᶜᵏ ᵈᵉˢᶦᵍⁿˢ ᵃʳᵉ 25% ᴏғғ ⁿᵒʷ ᵗʰʳᵘ ᵂᵉᵈⁿᵉˢᵈᵃʸ ⁿᶦᵍʰᵗ)

[counting-stars-gayly]

I’m actually LOVING how Rick Riordan, and the other writers of the show, took his initial concept of a Percabeth rivalry fueled by that of their parents and kind of turned it on its head?

Now, instead of Annabeth being wary of Percy because he’s a son of Poseidon, he’s wary of her because she made a callous impression on him. They get off to a rocky start even before finding out who Percy’s father is, and when they finally do, Annabeth doesn’t care. Instead of them fighting because of who their parents are, they’re fighting over their own opposed worldviews.

Then, instead of them arguing over which of the gods is cooler and who was right in the story of Medusa, they realize that, just like Medusa, Annabeth is a victim of her mother and that, unlike Medusa, she is a far kinder and stronger person, unwilling to repeat the cycle of hurt. They realize that, like his father, Percy often acts without considering potential consequences and that, unlike his father, he is a far kinder and stronger person, willing to step up for someone he wronged and whom he cares about.

Instead of Percy and Annabeth’s rivalry being focused on that of their parents, it’s focused on who they are, themselves. But the path to friendship is still the same: a realization that they have each other’s backs, no matter what, because they’re not their parents after all.

[livetogether--diealone]

6'2'' weighted blanket with attachement issues

[bowelfly]

gone fishin'

[heyitsnaardi]

lazy mornings

[stolenkissesdiaz]

i hope buck, eddie and shannon are haunting helena through chris rn. i hope when chris rolls his eyes and snarks back helena freezes reminding her damn well who his father is. i hope when chris bites the inside of cheek and is suddenly really interested in his hands when he’s nervous about something helena scrunches her eyebrows in confusion bc she swears she’s seen it before and her eyes widen as she recalls eddie’s friend, the same friend who was there when they picked up chris, having the same mannerisms when eddie and his team came to texas. i hope when chris asks for the ice cream from the store 45 minutes from their house near the park and he picks rocky road helena swallows roughly bc shannon would do the same when she missed eddie and/or was sad. i hope she’s violently reminded no matter how much she pretends, that child will never be hers in the way she’s so desperately been trying to make it be for years. i hope she’s reminded of her damn place in chris’ life.

[hope-ur-ok]

I can't believe the eras tour is over. I really want to thank everyone for listening to the audios I made for this tour, I never imagined so many people would care about my little passion project to collect all the live versions of the surprise songs. This has been an amazing journey to go on with all of you <3 <3 <3

[punnifullife]

more robstar art but now ft. some batfam!! This doesn't even scratch the surface of doodles i'll be posting...still mostly robstar but now I got other plans involving the batfam hehe

[futuristichedge]

It's Thursday somewhere

[dunmeshistash]

Dungeon Meshi Adventurer's Bible - Dungeon cross section

Details under the cut

Details cropped from this reddit post

[artkaninchenbau]

People keep on asking for more Baby Robin and Papadile so here is more Baby Robin and Papadile. Now never ask anything from me ever again

[canarydraws]

Andromeda 💙💜🩷