Open Learning In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

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Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, written in 1818, dives into a world before its time in science-fiction and horror. One of Shelley’s main underlining components in the gothic novel is the different styles of learning and how those styles are applied to life. Shelley creates a learning spectrum that ranges from rigorous studies to personalized open learning; this spectrum respectively comments on which methods of teaching are better than the others, by using her main characters as examples of how certain educational methods can corrupt or empower. Among the five characters that are prominently seen learning and using their education, two males stand out on the far end of the spectrum as the worse possible way to use knowledge. Victor Frankenstein …show more content…

The creature was created as a clean and uneducated slate, as he knew nothing upon awaking in Frankenstein’s chamber. But through his journey of discover her comes across the De Lacey’s who he observes and learns everything from words like “fire, milk, bread and wood” to “a cursory knowledge of history” in hiding (139, 148). The creature’s education is pure as he learns by observing an open learning environment, but his knowledge causes him great distress as he learned the “system of human society” and how social class, wealthy and title can create vastly different lives (149). The creature begins to question is part in society as he “possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property” and knew that he was viewed as “hideously deformed and loathsome” (149). However, he believed the De Lacey’s could “overlook [his] personal deformity” once they became “acquainted with [his] admiration of their virtues” (162). But his attempts proved futile as his conversation with the father De Lacey interrupted by the family. Felix, the son, “tore [him] from his father… and struck [him] violently with a stick” (168). This interaction with a family the creature deemed with compassion and honesty, lead him to believe on one could love him. The creature became angry and hateful towards his creator and all humans, as he “gave vent to [his] anguish in fearful howling” and fled into the woods. The creatures vengeful attitude led to the death of many in Frankenstein’s life, including his brother William, a house maid and

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