Svej Patel

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Frankenstein research 3

As my writing seems to be coming to a close, I only feel like I am getting more and more work from some portion of this project. I wish we had some better direction on how to format this project in writing because everyday I work on this, I always start out lost. Sometimes, I feel like certain portions of the overall critical review are just claims of certain themes and ideas constantly repeated, but I don’t know what more to write. 

Now that I am writing my critical review for sources that align with my thinking, I think I made the smart choice to branch out use another source by itself - not one from a piece of criticism I already have. This allows for my perception to become more nuanced since I have a wider variety of perspectives.

Other than that, I think I will be okay with my overall research. I am getting guidance from friends, I just wish I pushed myself to work more often so that I can consistently stay on track, but at least now I am on a pace ahead of many of my peers.

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Frankenstein research 2

The accumulation of this project has taken more time than any other project I have ever been given. However, the research is not as dreadful as many assignments and projects that I get from other classes.

Through research of the book, I am starting to learn more about science and history that actually somewhat sincerely interests me. As I research different political, intellectual, historical, and philosophical contexts of this story, I begin to really understand why the book was written the way it was when certain pieces of context were applied. Learning about the Age of Enlightenment opened my eyes to how recent Newtons laws of motion are, and how current that science was when this story was first published. Also, the story begins to challenge social and cultural norms as a result of people like John Locke and Isaac Newton. 

Although the research project becomes fascinating at points, the extent of it fries my brain after a few hours of work. More than often, I have to push myself to focus because of simply how extensive this project is. I have never researched this much ever. 

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Frankenstein research

This look for criticism is really frustrating and annoying the hell out of me. I feel like a lot of these critics just provide a plentiful supply of evidence to support the same claim and this spans across like 20 pages. However, I am being introduced to some perspectives on the story that I didn’t even think about, and now I start to question whether my experiences and personalities affect my perspective towards this book since some people look at it much differently. Female literary critics look at Frankenstein as a ground breaking story that opened the doors to females being able to write something so horrific and masculine that they could do anything. Even realizing how the passivity of female characters affect the terrifying mood that Mary Shelley wants to express is something interesting that I would never have thought of. It just so naturally makes sense for masculinity to go hand in hand with a chilling theme that I don’t think about it - especially since I am also a man. 

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Frankenstein 5

March 6th, 2019

I Before Victor sees the monster at the iceberg, I noticed that he seemed to have gone through what looks like depression. He was nearly never happy and always suffered from grief. He literally decided to climb an iceberg because scenic views were the only thing that would somewhat bring him some happiness.

Then the story takes another major turn - Victor reunites with the monster since seeing it at the murder scene. Victor tries to tell the monster to leave him alone, but he is forced to follow him into an ice cave with a fire, where the monster discusses his awkward and confusing life since birth. The monster actually was able to survive through survival tactics that I thought were really interesting, such as discovering sensations like thirst, hunger, cold, etc... and how it led to him learning about fire, which didn’t just bring him heat to help the cold, but also allowed for food to become for palatable. Although this story is fiction, Shelley was able to really make these order of events realistic in its own way, which made this story much more interesting. As the monster discusses his emotions of guilt when stealing food, I think readers started to shift their idea of what they think the monster really is. You even start to feel sorry for what the monster has gone through, especially when every human that sees you suns away from you. It’s so weird how your perspective on something can change so quickly, because just before this event I was anxiously awaiting for this monster to just pop up from nowhere and try to kill Victor. 

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Frankenstein 4

February 22nd, 2018

At first, Victor was extremely proud of his accomplishment. He had finally created this being, and was all happy about it. Suddenly, after a kiss on the being’s face, he suddenly recalls a traumatic experience, giving the animate being a horrific vibe. As a result, he tries to go to sleep, where he then wakes up to this. 

“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 downstairs.”

You know how there are jump scares in every horror movie? Well I think I experienced the written version of one through this quote. The diction that Shelley uses really has a profound effect on the reader’s emotions and mood, which I think greatly contributes to the success of this story. Thinking about this animate being standing right there right after waking up made me shiver and get goosebumps as I read this. I feel like Victor could have done something to kill it, but out of extreme fear I understand that you would just run away. 

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Frankenstein 3

February 18th, 2019

This story suddenly takes a very interesting turn. Until Victor attends college, there isn’t really one thing that makes Victor somehow extraordinary. Then college happens, and Victor suddenly becomes so fascinated in his studies that he completely ignores his social life and family. Victor is so fascinated by the mystery of the creation of life that after several years, he was able to master everything that his masters have taught him, leading to his next goal - the creation of an animate creature.

This is when I was like what the hell. Victor hides away in his own apartment so that he can work where no one can watch. He neglected every aspect of his live so that he can devote everything to this creation. This led to him becoming pale, lonely, and obsessed. 

I don’t know what type of emotion I should be feeling as a result of this. Should I feel bad or sorry for him, or should it be okay for him to explore his passion to this extent? 

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Frankenstein 2

February 11th, 2019

So past the 2 introductions and the preface, the actual story begins with Victor Frankenstein’s childhood. He grew up close to a girl named Elizabeth Lavenza, who was an orphan when they first met as children.  Caroline, Frankenstein’s mother, was visiting Milan when she discovered her, and after always having the desire for a daughter, decided to adopt her. 

Elizabeth’s mother died while giving birth to her, which I realized is a parallel to the author’s personal experience. Through the introduction, and my first post, we know that Shelley uses writing as a way to explore her emotions, and this detail makes this statement evident. Shelley’s mother passed away while giving birth to her as well, so she implemented the same experience through her writing. Knowing that this detail occurs so quickly into the story, I made it aware to myself that there will probably be many more details that connect to Shelley’s experiences and emotions. 

As Victor continues to grow up, he becomes best friends with Elizabeth. Victor also shows a keen interest in philosophy and other sciences, which he then delves deeper into throughout college. One day, he experiences the destruction of lightning striking down a tree near his house, where he is then taught the workings of electricity, possibly foreshadowing an event or act that will happen later in the story (since electricity and Frankenstein have always seemed to coincide). I enjoy how the story starts out chronologically - nothing too simply but simply just a timeline of Victor’s life.

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Frankenstein 1

February 5th, 2019

Before the actual story begins, the book contains an introduction, an authors introduction, and a preface. This is one of the few things that I first dreaded about this book, until I realized that this all had some significance to the story. Learning about the authors life, experiences, history, childhood, etc. all contributes to why such a unique tale was able to created.

The introduction discussed how Shelly, “...used fiction and foils to explore her innermost feelings.” By her mid-twenties, Shelly had been through certain traumatic experiences that no one would ever wish for: her mother died as a result of giving birth to her; her half-sister - Fanny - had committed suicide about a month after her 19th birthday; four of her five conceptions ended tragically, the last a near-fatal miscarriage; her husband - Percy - drowned six years after their marriage, and their friend Byron died two years after. What makes up everyone’s personality and their perspectives are the life experiences that that person has been through, so I already knew Shelley was unique. 

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Frankenstein

December 27th, 2018

Browsing for the right book started out very difficult. I am usually interested in a wide variety of topics, but I don’t read as often anymore so I had to really scan for the right book. I went online but for some reason as I read summaries of books I was just losing more and more interest in what I wanted to read, so I decided to go physically look for a book. I ended up at Barnes & Nobles, where the atmosphere was perfect for reading. I was able to peacefully look through different books, reading a little bit of the introduction and first chapter. I came across many books, such as the Slaughterhouse-Five, the Da Vinci Code, Life of Pi, Fahrenheit 51, and many more. A worker noticed me browsing, and strongly recommended Frankenstein by Mary Shelly to me. I took the book and was suddenly deeply interested in the story line. I took the chair to a sofa, and just sat down and read for about 45 minutes. The mix of science in this sort of classical fiction really seemed to catch my eye, so I settled on this book. And thinking ahead, I knew Frankenstein would have plenty of criticism to be able to use within my project, because of how popular and accredited this story has always been. I felt like it was the perfect book.

The book has also been translated onto the big screen many times, which was iterated into the PG version for kids to enjoy. Frankenstein has even become a popular cultural symbol during Halloween. This all started from this story, so being able to explore the time line of how this book was able to turn into what it has become today brings a whole other side to my keen interest on picking this book. 

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Nerve

I feel like this movie was able to portray teenagers and their problems a little more. We see the popular group of teens of jocks and what not that are usually portrayed, and the little side group that says quiet. There are two best friends, one that is basically in the popular group, and one that is shy and a little awkward. The shy friend, named Vee, has a crush on one of the jocks in the popular group, and we see that later in the movie, Vee’s best friend hooked up with him because Vee never did anything. During the movie, rebellion is a constant theme because the teenagers are playing a game that is illegal and requires Vee to do things that her mom would most definetely not approve of. I think that this portrayal of teenagers and their problems is much more accurate than Rebel Without a Cause because of how there are a more variety of problems, and how the problems are much more modern. I also know that there are many teenagers that feel what Vee feels from her mom, the feeling that you are sheltered from having almost any fun. Then, theres Vee’s best friend that is a party animal and adrenaline junky that always wants to do something. This portrayal makes teenagers and their problems way more accurate than Rebel Without a Cause. 

Many of the characters in the movie actually seem very believable. Within the jock group, the head “jock” teen indirectly rejects Vee, and there are many teenagers like this today. Vee’s best friend, Sydney, is an adrenaline junky cheerleader, which although is stereotypical for a popular girl, she also backstabbed her best friend. I have heard stories withinin our own school where things like this have happened, so it really makes the character more believable. The main character, Vee, is also believable because of how she is portrayed as the shy awkward girl. Obviously, we have seen people like these everyday and the stories behind them, which shows that the movie portrays the characters to actually be reliable, unlike Rebel Without a Cause.

The audience for this film is the same as all teen rebellion movies- teenagers. The movie is centered around an adrenaline rushing game over technology that is played by teenagers. They are the only ones able to connect with the back stabbing and personal emotions that are portrayed in the movie because they are currently living in those times. The purpose of the movie, besides entertainment, could be to show modern teenage problems. I can see this because the movie is really centered around technology and social media, but also through high school teenagers, so unlike Rebel Without a Cause, Nerve combines today’s society’s characteristics into this movie. The speaker in this case would most likely not be parents like Rebel Without a Cause, but the speaker could also be teenagers. Even though teenagers are the audience, they could be wanting to send this message to other teens to be able to connect with them and their problems personally. 

My parents looked at this movie as something that really shows the extent of technology in today’s society. With how much teens are on social media and their phones, they could get pulled into something like this game and it could really affect their lives. 

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Rebel Without a Cause

Rebel Without a Cause is meant to be a portrayal of what high school students do and how they rebel against their parents and the police. We see the stereotypical popular kids clique and a new kid who is trying to fit in from an outer circle group (more like just him). Even though I wasn’t alive to experience the high school lifestyle of the 1950s, you could tell that the portrayal of the teenagers and their problems were a exaggerated. Every actor dramatized every emotion, but I think that there was a purpose to this. Many of the problems portrayed in the movie are problems that many high school kids experience - the feeling of being left out or having parents that seem to be against every decision you make. The movie is able to exaggerate these emotions to attempt to make an accurate portrayal of teenagers. In the end, the movie wasn’t really that accurate to the activities that teenagers do today and their problems because I never see me or my friends tackling our parents during stressful times or doing illegal things where you can get killed.

I do not find these characters believable because of how exaggerated and dramatized everything was. I have never seen a circle of people surrounding 2 people who are about to fight with knives. Out of everything, why would they have used knives, and why did they both have them? I wasn't really able to connect to with events like that so I couldn’t see any of them be believable. Another event that was extremely unbelievable was the racing scene. Even though it’s just a movie, I would never see characters in real life taking there ego to that next level where you would race. 

I think that the audience for this film specifically was simply teenagers. Teenagers constantly look to connect their daily lives to pop culture, and they would go to see this movie to see what similarities the movie portrays. The purpose for the movie is to portray a stereotypical high school problem, plus a much more dramatic version so that the movie becomes more entertaining. The film wants teenagers to try and connect to the events that happen within this film, like rebelling against parents, and what the potential consequences could be.  The speaker can be many people, but I feel the most popular would be parents. Throughout the movie, we constantly see kids not listening to their parents, and the implications become detrimental. We see Plato dying creating a sense that teenagers need to follow the rules because you can get lost and ruin your life. 

With my parents being foreign, they took the ending of the movie as a prime example on why I should listen to what they tell me. As I discussed my observations with them, they turned it into a lecture and basically talked about how these things happen on the news with teenagers dying from doing stupid things that there parents probably didn’t want them to do. 

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My Name: Svej

My first name is one of the most original entities I have been aware of throughout my life. You can look up my name on google, and I am the only person that would pop up. A new teacher or substitute teacher would look at my name on the roster and have no idea how to say it, but would easily say the word “John” because of the over use of it. The word is never used as a name, except for me. Go to anyone, and ask them if they know a person named Svej, besides me.

However, my name isn’t completely original. My name is rooted from the word Svejan, which means loving in Gujarati. So my name has became a remix of a Gujarati word, and even though “Svejan” is rarely used within the language” it shows that my name is still not completely original. My parents did not randomy make up a name when I was born. My unpopular name was simply a remix of a word.

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Secondary Work 6 - Into Thin Air

When Fischer says “I am very sick, too sick to go down. I am going to jump,” the thought of the Toy Story soldier scene came into my head. It was the scene when the toy soldiers were going to scout for something, when one of the were stepped on and wanted the rest of the team to go on without him because he would only hold them back. Although Fischer doesn’t say the same exact thing, he implies that he is going to hold back the team so he would rather just jump. 

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Primary Work 5 - Into Thin Air

As people are reaching the top, and Krakauer starts to descend, Krakauer finds out that Fischer has lowkey been ill while the summit to the peak of Everest. He apparently contracted a virus in his system that never left, and every now and then Fischer gets relapses of the virus. Unfortunately, it has happened at the worse time. At the top of the mountain, Pittman is becoming unconscious, so they have to give her a shot of some sort of drug to reduce the effects of the high altitude. There seems to be a lot going on, and Krakauer may have been right. It seems as if some of his teammates were not as ready as they should have been, and even Fischer risked the climb knowing that he had a parasite in his system that could affect the expedition. 

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Secondary Work 5 - Into Thin Air

This part of the book is really interesting because the group is about to summit Mount Everest. What is really nerve racking is how selfish Boukreev is being to the team, which can result in costing the team the entire trip. This reminds me of how in the last few minutes of a sport like basketball, someone wants to take the game winning shot- meaning they can also cost the entire game. There is usually that one selfish player that doesn’t pass the ball in crunch time so that they can take the shot to win the game, and when that person misses the shot, that person screws everything up. Boukreev is in such a rush to get to the top that he is getting in fights with others, and this could cost him the entire climb. I hate people like this.

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Primary Work 4 - Into Thin Air

So far, one of the most interesting things that I have learned is the Sherpas and how they approach their religious activities throughout the climb. It seems like they really rely on Sagarmatha to push them up the mountain. Krakauer finds a keen interest in this as well, especially since the concept of having a god centered around Everest is a whole new one.

In this chapter, Krakauer talks about having a stubborn teammate named Beck Weathers. The way Krakauer describes her seems really annoying, and how she is a risk to the team. She thought wearing new boots on the climb would be smart, when she was even told that you have to wear shoes that are broken in. Besides that, at this point in the story, Krakauer is only one mile away (one vertical mile) from the summit, and he is feeling great. The team doesn’t seem like it is having as many problems as it was previously having, so it looks like its going well, even though I know something bad is gonna happen when Krakauer reaches the summit.

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Secondary Work 4 - Into Thin Air

Krakauer and the rest of his teammates are encountering many problems while climbing. I noticed that when almost the entirety of the team had frostbite, but were forced to climb, the movie “The Day After Tomorrow” came across my head. When the teenagers went to a city (I think it was New York or Chicago) and had to compete in some academic competition, they encountered a horrible world ending storm. There was a point in the movie where they were in a huge library burning books, and they were in the eye of the entire storm--meaning that once they got out of the eye, they were basically screwed. So after the storm traveled and the eye of the storm centered somewhere else, the city became so cold that you could see instant frost forming all across the city. The freezing temperatures of Everest, as described in the book, made me recall this image of “cold”. Also, in the movie, out of the group of people that were surviving, there was someone who was really badly sick. Ngawang’s condition of sickness reminded of that person who was sick in the movie. In the movie, the others were willing to do anything to go out and find medicine, and the people in the book were doing their hardest to cure Ngawang, but it was not successful.