The aim of both sessions was to focus upon the precise nature of the language used in our exam texts and link the nature of the language to author's aim and features of the gothic tradition. The focus of the discussion was Chapter Four of FRANKENSTEIN and the final monologue of the creature at the end of the novel. The class discussion considered the importance of SYMBOLISM as a key feature within the gothic text before the focus became the SYMBOLIC SIGNIFICANCE OF LANGUAGE. Students were asked to consider the significance of quotes such as...'No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me on like a hurricane....I pursued nature to her hiding-places...I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit...my eye-balls were starting from their sockets in attending to the details of my employment....I kept my workshop of filthy creation...the slaughterhouse....I appeared rather like one doomed by slavery to toil in the mines...the fall of a leaf startled me...I grew alarmed at the wreck I perceived that I had become.'
The discussion considered how the dramatic and intense use of language could be linked to the gothic tradition. The second session considered the symbolic significance of the language used by the creature in the final pages of the novel. Students need to be able to explain how key words can be linked to the author's aim and the gothic genre. For example what is the significance of the creature describing himself as an 'abortion'? Students were also asked to consider Shelley's novel as a tragedy and consider the extent to which the gothic can be linked to tragedy.
HOMEWORK: Students need to be reading all the exam texts. On Wednesday we will be linking language use in Faustus, Macbeth and Frankenstein. Students might want to consider why the creature's language is so similar to the language used by Victor. Author's aim?
Students need to be READING THE TEXTS. I will be handing back essays at the start of the next session.
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