Thor s Day, November 29: Happy Birthday!

Transcription

1 Thor s Day, November 29: Happy Birthday! EQ: How did the realities of Mary Shelley s life create this novel? Welcome! Gather pen/pencil, paper, wits! Opening: Happy Birthday! Group Reading: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein o Students answer Reading Guide questions by reading packet or original novel. Discussion: Birthday Party Ending Activity: Frankensteins ELACC12RL-RI1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis ELACC12RL3: Analyze the impact of the author s choices regarding elements of a story ELACC12RI3: Analyze and explain how individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop ELACC12RL5: Analyze an author s choices concerning how to structure specific parts of a text ELACC12RI5: Analyze and evaluate effectiveness of the structure an author uses ELACC12RL6: Distinguish what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant ELACC12RL7: Analyze multiple interpretations of a text ELACC12RL10: Read and comprehend complex literature independently and proficiently. ELACC12W1: Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts ELACC12W4: Produce clear and coherent writing appropriate to task, purpose, and audience ELACC12W10: Write routinely over extended and shorter time frames ELACC12SL1: Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions ELACC12SL4: Present information, findings, and supporting evidence ELACC12SL6: Adapt speech to a variety of tasks, demonstrating a command of formal English ELACC12L1: Demonstrate standard English grammar and usage in speaking and writing. ELACC12L2: Use standard English capitalization, punctuation, spelling in writing. ELACC12L3: Demonstrate understanding of how language functions in different contexts ELACC12L4: Determine/clarify meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases ELACC12L6: Acquire and use general academic and domain-specific words and phrases

2 Opening: Happy Birthday! Think about Frankenstein i.e., the version of the story and its monster that you know best and address the following: 20 words or detailed drawing: How is the monster CREATED? 20 words or detailed drawing: How does the monster LOOK? 20 words or brief performance: How does the monster MOVE? 20 words or brief performance: How does the monster SOUND?

3 Narrative Epistolary Frame Metanarrative

4 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818) Italicized passages are from Shelley s text; plot summary (adapted from is in italics. [Frankenstein is an epistolary novel, told as a series of letters. Robert Walton, captain of a ship bound for the North Pole, writes them to his sister back in London. Walton s ship gets stuck in Arctic ice, and Walton sees a man chasing a giant across the ice. The man, Victor Frankenstein, collapses and is rescued, and he tells Walton his strange story. Victor says that he had an ideal childhood in Switzerland with his friend Clerval and adopted sister Elizabeth; his father was loving but intellectually distant. As a young man Victor entered the University of Ingolstadt to study natural philosophy what we today call science. He was obsessed with finding the secret of life, and spent months building a man out of human body parts he d stolen from graveyards. Then, one night, it happened:] It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room. I threw myself on my bed in my clothes.i was disturbed by the wildest dreams. I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, I embraced her; but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms; a shroud enveloped her form, and I saw the grave-worms crawling in the folds of the flannel. I started from my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered my forehead, my teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed: when, by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window shutters, I beheld the wretch -- the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped, and rushed down stairs.

5 Reading Guide: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein 1. Frankenstein is an novel i.e., we read it as a series of. 2. Where is Robert Walton trying to go, how is he trying to get there, and why isn t he moving? 3. Walton is writing letters to his, who lives in. 4. Walton sees a man chasing a, and rescues the man, whose name turns out to be Victor. 5. Victor says he grew up in with his friend named and his adopted sister named. 6. Victor s father was loving but. Whom did Mary Shelley know that fit that description? 7. Victor went to the University of to study, and spent months building a man out of stolen from. 8. Victor finished his work in what month, and in what weather? 9. Describe in detail the equipment and process with which the creature was brought to life. Okay, this is a trick question. Why do you think the narrator and the author tell us NOTHING about the equipment and process for bringing the dead alive? 10. Victor says of his creature, His limbs were in, and I had selected his features as.! Great God! 11. What specifically are we told about the creature at the moment it comes to life: Skin color: Teeth: Eyes: Complexion: Lips: NOW: Circle any of the above which describe what human babies sometimes look like at the moment they are born. 12. Right after bringing the creature to life, Victor ran to and went to. 13. What did Victor dream? 14. What was standing there when Victor woke up, and what did it do? 15. What did Victor do next?

6 You are about to see several depictions of Frankenstein s monster. Freewrite a short response (20 words) to each. Frontispiece from 1831 edition of Mary Shelley s novel, Frankenstein This is the earliest visual rendering of The Monster

7 Thomas Edison s 1910 silent film Frankenstein is the earliest film rendering of The Monster Promotional Still from movie poster Birth Scene from the film

8 The Monster We Know And Love: Boris Karloff in the 1931 film Frankenstein Pretty much every Frankenstein looked like this for the next 40 years.

9 Frankenstein in the 1970s Christopher Lee in The Curse of Frankenstein (1970) Christopher Lee played Saruman in The Lord of the Rings.

10 Michael Sarrazin, in Frankenstein: The True Story (1973). In this made-for-television movie the monster began life looking normal, and only became monstrous with age.

11 Fantasy artist Boris Vallejo s 1993 painting

12 Robert de Niro in the 1994 film Mary Shelley s Frankenstein

13 Luke Goss in a 2004 Hallmark Movie Channel production of Frankenstein. Turn in Freewrites, Drawings You may keep OR turn in Reading Guide