Sci Fi Isn't All Horrifying

You can ask pretty much anyone what the meaning of life is and 95% of people will probably answer “42”. I haven’t met someone who didn’t at least know what Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy was, and I’ve never met someone who read it and doesn’t recall it fondly. I attempted to read Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy years ago and was, unfortunately, not able to really get into it. I followed it up with the movie years later and was also not really enthralled with the story. Now, having listened to the radio show, I still can’t say I really love it.

                I found it hard to connect with a character who doesn’t really seem to care about anything. And if he does care he cares in what my mom describes as a “quintessentially British way”, summed up by this clip from an episode of The Tick (00:50-00:55 - https://youtu.be/1Wh2CruhrKk?t=50 ). Funnily enough, the sidekick character in this show is also named Arthur. Arthur from Hitchhiker’s Guide cares about the destruction of Earth in much the same way that he cares about the destruction of his house, enough to leave in the middle of his own protest. While I do think this is very funny and I enjoy the overall comedic tone of the radio show, its hard for me to care about a character that doesn’t really seem committed to anything. For me, it didn’t provide enough of a logical bases for the main character before then bombarding me with crazy weird characters and circumstances. That being said, I think this satire of the Sci Fi genre is much more compelling now that I’ve read more serious Sci Fi stories.

                Much of what we’ve discussed about the futuristic Sci Fi genre is it’s ability to contextualize our own present. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale puts a lot of these radical abortion bill’s in harsh lighting. However, Hitchhiker’s guide spins that on its head when it introduces a computer that can answer the ultimate question. However, the element that’s supposed to deeply contextualize our own present is… “42”. This is followed by the computer claiming it needs the calculate the ultimate question. Not to get all preachy, but the satire of a genre so devoted to commenting on our own society via uplifting messages or warnings indicates to me that spending so much time trying to make sense of our own existence is stupid because humans are just a tiny tiny part of a huge universe. The world is going to end one day and whether our society was morally “good” or not isn’t going to matter. Besides, I’m not sure many people will care about the end of our moral society as much as they’ll care that that’s where we keep all our stuff.

Too Realistic for It's Own Good?

My first exposure to the story of The HandMaid’s Tale was from the acclaimed TV show on Hulu, starring Elizabeth Moss. I was very excited to watch this show and eagerly sat attentive to the screen, ready to soak up all the dystopian woman-hate. However, after about two seasons I realized that this show was very… boring. Don’t get me wrong there are many great things about it and I don’t doubt the creative team achieved what they set out to make, but the show is very slow moving. So when I saw The Handmaid’s Tale on the list of book to read this week I was pretty jazzed to give it a second chance. Hopefully, the book would give me a little more, right? Well, the short answer is no, but am I even right to ask for more?

                Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is a story about a society in political unrest. The new form of government promotes a puritan ideology that places huge restrictions on women that prevent them from reading, watching TV, and being alone. Our main character, Offred takes the role of a Handmaid in this society, meaning her primary purpose is to bare children for a wealthy political couple. She does not hold any power outside of her ability to carry a child and this is basically all that protects her from being sent to Colonies. Throughout the story, she encounters characters attempting to break out of their restrictions, but she herself does very little. Her master forces her to break the rules by going to see him at night and play Scrabble, Ofglen asks her to gain information for the resistance, Serena set Offred up to sleep with Nick. People either force Offred to do things or things happen to her. She doesn’t do much at all. She displays very little agency in her own story. Which is what originally made it boring to watch and boring to read. HOWEVER, in a story where woman have no agency, no power, no choices they can make for themselves… is it right of me to expect the lead female character to contradict the entire theme Atwood has established? If anything, Offred’s lack of action enforces just how powerless she is. She CAN’T do anything. Even as the protagonist of the story, a role which is usually reserved for our Katnisses and Harry Potters and even Ted from Harllan Ellison’s ‘I have no mouth and I must scream’, all characters who upset the status quo, Offred doesn’t even have to opportunity to be a typical protagonist. So why should I want so much from her?

                I found this story upsetting to read, as I‘m sure it was intended to be. Atwood has stated that every aspect of the puritan society has happened in real life at some point in some culture. This provides a haunting base for her fictional dystopian future. It’s not a huge stretch to compare Gilead’s culture to our own, especially with some of the extreme laws surrounding abortions in some states and the restrictions of women getting their tubes tied. Many people tend to make comparisons to The Handmaid’s Tale when the new proposed bill comes out and it says something like “doctors are required to reimplant an ectopic pregnancy”, a procedure which is impossible. The general spread of misinformation, lack of woman voices in law making, and religious beliefs invading a government that claims the “separation of church and state”, all seem very at home in Atwoods story.

                I admire Atwood for her world building and her attention to detail. Her future puts our present in a humbling context. However, I think I admire her most for writing from the perspective of someone who is not the hero. She is not the person who is going to overthrow the government or right the wrongs of an unchecked power structure. She is an average person who is stuck in an extremely restrictive society. She is what 99.9% of us would be in this situation. Not all of us can be Katniss. Not all of us will be Katniss. Offred is emotional and scared and powerless. She is what makes this one of the most realistic dystopian novels I’ve ever read. She is also what makes it so hard to enjoy. But there is nothing enjoyable about this dystopia. And that seems to be the point.

What if Windows 10 Doesn't Support Tragically Flawed Women?

William Gibson’s The Winter Market tackles the concept of immortality and the relationship to one’s body. The story focuses on a girl, Lise, and her talent for creating dreams and experiences that can be processed and distributed to other people for consumption. Lise is a drug addict and relies on an exoskeleton to move because of a progressive disease. She also has a cutthroat attitude and an obsession with being famous. When she is discovered by the main character, Casey, she becomes a start and is eventually given the opportunity to upload herself onto a computer, leaving her old decaying body behind. However, Casey struggles with whether the new computer version of Lise is really her or just a program.

                Lise is a supreme example of the tough, technologically modified, leading lady in a steam punk or cyberpunk story. She seems almost all powerful and Casey’s description of her functions as our tour through the strange futuristic world they inhabit. A world where what makes a person a person is beginning to be questioned. Casey is the editor of Lise’s dreams and function much like a music producer. Her makes her dreams palatable and easily distributable to a wide audience. He becomes so attached to her that he is distraught when she gives herself over to the computer is effectively “dies”. However, is he really gone? He is still expected to edit and release the dreams she produces from the computer. His life remains sort of unchanged. The death of his artist does not put him out of a job.

                I really enjoyed this story and its commentary on humanity in a future where people are becoming less and less human and more computer. Lise is a human at the start of the story but uses cybernetic enhancements to live. She even describes the suffocating feeling she gets when she takes off her exoskeleton. For her, becoming totally computer may not be a huge leap. I don’t think I could ever upload myself to a computer and expect the computer to actually BE the real me. But for someone who is almost all computer already, that may not be as hard of a decision to make.

I'm Going to be a "Father" *EMOTIONAL*

I thoroughly enjoyed Octavia Butler’s Bloodchild. I think her fear of having something living inside her was very well expressed through the eyes of the young protagonist. While the story as a whole is very strange and thought provoking, the most interesting part of it, to me, was when Gan considered making his sister the host of T'Gatoi’s children. While I was not able to directly connect with this story element, as I am an only child, the idea of coming to terms with your role in society seems pretty universal. He decides against having his sister take his place not only because it’s a harsh life to have to force onto someone else, but also because she has to bear human children. This realization seemed to highlight how women are treated as hosts in human society, similarly to how men are treated in Butler’s story. Childbirth is similar to the alien birth in that it is somewhat secretive, painful, and in some cases quite gory. When we are finally told how the human birthing process works, it is often daunting if not totally off putting. Gan experiences these exact emotions when he finally sees what his role entails.

The switching of gender roles was very interesting to read and is evident, not only in the roles of the humans in the story, but also in the alien society where females dominate. I wonder if the choice of having the alien that takes care of the family be a female reflects Butler’s own upbringing as a child of a single mother. This switch also functions as an extreme inverse of our own society, where men are more typically seen in positions of political power. However, it is heightened to a point where T’Gatoi is excited to see a male being born at all.

One element of the story that I wish was elaborated on was the role of the mother. Gan’s mother seems to resist the advances and traditions of the alien race in the beginning of the story. This may be due to her seeing her husband being used as a host three times in his life. She seems like a character that has a lot to say in opposition to the alien/ human codependency, but instead she takes a back seat in the story. I would love to see her role expanded on.
I think this narrative would make a good accessible graphic novel or short film. However, it would be very interesting to see it as a video game. Instead of the main protagonist being Gan, the player could play as someone coming across a society like this and finding out about the codependency by talking to the humans who live there. It could be played as from an outsider's perspective instead of coming from someone on the inside. While this may lose the personal element Butler has created in her story, I think it could still do well in a horror sci-fi video game genre.

There are also elements of this story that could be considered afro-futurist. As someone who is used to reading futuristic stories from the perspective of white authors, it was interesting to see a future written by someone with a different background. The most obvious element that references this may be the names of the characters. I wish I could point out element other than the implied skin color of the main characters that is particularly afro-futuristic, but as someone who doesn’t know much about the cultural background of the author, it is difficult for me to identify references in her futuristic work. I wonder if someone with a similar background would get more out of the story than I do.

I hope to read more stories like Bloodchild. It was fun to see something so outlandish being made so relatable.

aaaaaaaaaaaaah

While the story ‘I have no mouth and I must scream’ by Harlan Ellison is a short one, it has inspired many adaptations. It was the video adaptation that I had encountered first, so when I read this short story, I had an idea of what I was getting into. That being said, I think the short story is more successful than the game. The compressed nature of the short story gives the reader a hint of how exasperated the characters are with their predicament, yet how tedious their lives really are. There is a real sense of torture created by a lack of timeline and an ever-changing environment and circumstance.  One minute, all the characters are stuck in a cave. The next, they’re traversing through snow.

                The element of AM’s torture that was the most interesting was the alterations made to the people. One person was blinded and given monkey-like features, but the other people seemed less physically affected. It called into question the legitimacy of the main character’s claim that AM hadn’t altered his mind in a way. The main character is extremely paranoid, and even loathes the people who are kept with him. He loathes Ellen the most, as she is portrayed as almost exclusively sexually motivated. However, I wonder if the computer altered her to be that way and, is so, does the computer base its alterations on what it perceives humans to be. Although, the main character doesn’t appear to see it that way, the punishments AM inflicts don’t seem to be totally random. Perhaps we are reading this story through the eyes of someone that AM has altered in some way. Altered to think that AM hasn’t altered him.

                This is probably one of the favorite sci-fi stories I’ve read. It’s so far into the dystonia genre that one could argue that the world has already totally ended before the story even takes place. It’s a tale of warning in which all the characters are as good as dead before we even meet them.

At Least the Alien Gets My Jokes

When I first started reading First Contact by Murray Leinster, I was put off by the complex descriptions of the futuristic spaceship. However, when the spaceship and crew encounter an alien ship while investigating a nebula, their attempts to learn about the new life form became more engaging. Not that I’m one to know much about realistic alien encounters, but I really enjoyed that, in contrast to many first encounter stories, the opposing sides didn’t immediately go to war. They didn’t become friends either. Instead, they acknowledged the faults of their own societies and the instinct to start a war with the unknown. The authors exploration of the differences between humans and aliens as well as the ways the main character, Tommy Dort, derived facts about the aliens based on the very limited information they gave was well thought out.

                Tommy’s relationship with the alien, Buck, was part of what made this story accessible, at least to me. The personal element added a lot to what could have been a, while not uninteresting, less “human” alien encounter. This relationship was one of the grounding factors in a story where a lot of the characters barely know what’s going on.

                The ultimate resolution to the story was an interesting one. While, it was a hopeful one, it also left the reader hoping the two societies saw the exchange as a peaceful occurrence. I can think of one specific person who’s pioneering a “space force” who may not react well to such an event. Regardless, the ultimate resolution of finding that aliens are more human than we thought is a pleasant one to say the least.

My Dad's Having an Affair so I Became Friends with a Literal God - by Neil Gaiman

The most prominent thing I noticed about Neil Gaiman’s Ocean at the End of the Lane, is the author’s unique ability to write from a children’s perspective. The unnamed protagonist starts his narration as an adult looking back at his life, but when we read about his younger self, the tone of the story changes. This contrast made the story very immersive for me, especially when his younger self would describe things he didn’t fully understand, such as the dead man in the backseat of the car or his dad having an affair. Gaiman used very simplistic, sort sentence structure, which also aided in transporting me back to when I was young. This made the climax and resolution of the story all the more enlightening.

                When the protagonist first met the three Hempstock women, I figured they were witches. However, when Lettie Hempstock clearly stated that they were not witches, I was left wondering what their existence was meaning to represent. However, after finding out they were a version the Triple Goddess, the story made a lot more sense. The Ocean at the End of the Lane seems to be a sort of coming of age story. The young protagonist faces many situations and characters, both good and bad, that are far beyond his comprehension. He discovers that his parents are not perfect, evident in his father trying to drown him, and that the world can be full of scary things, like Ursula and the Hunger Birds (great band name). Ultimately, Lettie, the maiden of the Triple Goddess, sacrifices herself to save the main character. This indicated to me that his true childhood innocence was gone, to be replaced by a wiser and stronger form of himself that could survive in a less forgiving world. While Lettie is never truly gone, she is no longer with the protagonist.

                The idea that Lettie’s ultimate sacrifice was also a symbol for the protagonist losing his childhood innocence, is made even more evident when the protagonist returns to the Hempstock farm in his later years. Ginnie Hempstock is only seen at the end of the story, indicating that the protagonist may be in the final stage of the Triple Goddess, entering old age and becoming the crone. Furthermore, Ginnie says “Lettie did a very big thing for you. I think she mostly wants to find out what happened next, and whether it was worth everything she did.” Was the sacrifice of our own childhood wonder worth becoming the person we are today?

Don't Be a Bitch... You'll Make a Witch

In the short stories The Cinder Maid, The Baba Yaga, and The Wicked Stepmother there is one very obvious common thread. This is the presence of an evil stepmother who marries the man of the family after the mother either dies or is cursed. There are very few male characters in any of these stories and these men tend to be mostly absent from the story. The main characters are women and the main antagonists are women. In most of the stories, the mentor is also a woman.

                I found these stories a lot more interesting after our class discussion about how witches are generally removed from mainstream society. Witches tend to live outside of a typical family group and out of a patriarchal society. The best example of this is probably Baba Yaga, who lives with a servant in the woods, but has no husband or children to speak of. She is the antagonist of the story and seems to be feared by the society the main character inhabits. In The Cinder Maid, there isn’t a specific witch character, but the Cinder Maid herself uses magic to fool the prince. She is also removed from a typical family group, however this time it is against her will. Due to her being rejected from her family, she is able to access the power from the tree behind her house. In The Wicked Stepmother, the woman who possess magic is cursed and therefore, removed from her family. She cannot remain as a mother figure because she is a goat and is, therefore, replaced by, you guessed it, an evil stepmother. However, as a goat, she is able to provide for her children using magic.

                I find it interesting that all of these characters that live outside of what would be considered a normal living situation possess magic. However, I am most interested by the characters that deliberately do not have magical powers until after they are rejected from society. While the woman who becomes a goat may have powers prior to being a goat (how else would she become a goat?), it is not until she breaks her vow that she is able to provide for her children in supernatural ways. This is similar in the Cinder Maid tale. The Cinder Maid does not have powers until she is unable to attend a party with her family. These tales paint a woman living outside of society as a woman with power and influence.

                The casting of the evil stepmother is also fascinating to me. This seems like a deliberate choice to emphasize that a woman who chooses to live in a typical family unit, or invades a typical family unit, is one who is evil and ultimately loses. It seems that the trend in these stories is ‘Live beyond a woman’s typical role and become powerful. Live in a family unit and become loved by your children. But do not invade someone else’s family unit.’ While each stepmother in these stories is obviously evil, I also think maybe, in a effort to release woman from the patriarchy and empower them to live how they want to live, these stories are also informing women of where to do not belong, which may be a little counter-intuitive.

A Book About a Girl Who Measures Plates

First of all, the best part about The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett are the names of the Nac Mac Feegle. My personal favorite is probably Slightly Mad Angus, but he only beats out Not-As-Big-As-Medium-Sized-Jock-But-Bigger-Than-Wee-Jock-Jock by a hair. I really enjoyed the language and slang terms of the Nac Mac Feegle, as well as the way Terry Pratchett wrote their accents. This humor and world building is what originally drew me to this book.

                From the start, the character, Tiffany Aching, captured my attention. I love that we are introduced to her in her attempt to use her brother as bait to hit a lake creature with a frying pan. Her journey from deciding to become a witch, to being chosen as the Kelda, to saving Wentworth from the Queen, makes her even more savvy than she is at the start. Tiffany is frequently underestimated. What surprised me most about this story was that the public’s perception of Tiffany doesn’t change much, despite how much she herself changes. In the end, when Roland receives all the credit for saving Wentworth and defeating the Queen, I was sure Tiffany was going to come forward and defend herself. I think that the Tiffany Aching at the beginning of the book probably would have. But, after she assures Roland that she would be watching, her change in character and maturity became even clearer.

                I really enjoyed the themes of family and home in this story. Tiffany is driven to create normalcy in her home again after Wentworth is kidnapped. She also has a very strong connection to her Grandmother, evident in her imagining of Grannie’s chewing tobacco. It is her ancestry and dedication to her family that ultimately saves her, as well as assures her that she will become a full witch someday. The Nac Mac Feegle are also very family motivated, as they are a clan of warrior who are dedicated to their Kelda. It is their willingness to sacrifice their safety for the good of their Kelda that aids Tiffany the most in her quest.

                Ultimately this is a tale about personal growth and finding strength in family. Also, there’s a frog lawyer in this story. How can it not be good?

Growing Pains

Upon first reading of the short story, Flesh and Mirror, I was confused. This piece reads very much like a stream of consciousness run-on sentence, which, while very fun to experience, ultimately left me questioning if certain events really happened or if the narrator simply imagined them. The narrator seems to disguise her real feelings in flowery language and romantic description. Furthermore, the narrator begins her story by referring to herself in the first person, but at some point in the story she refers to herself in the third person and then switches back again. This disassociation threw me off a little bit and I found myself trying to find my footing, only to be blown around by continuous poetic speeches from the narrator.

Upon second reading, I found that the narrator, herself was confused and questioning what was happening to her. Her romantic descriptions of the world made a lot more sense. She is a character that acts as if she is in a romance film, wishing for the love of her life to find her and sweep her off her feet. She creates her own narrative for her to act in, instead of confronting her true wants and desires. When her own actions deviate from what she perceives as the narrative she is supposed to follow, she loses herself and is unable to see herself in the mirror.

When reading this I found myself swept up in her resistance to change. The narrator seems like she wanted to be someone in a romantic film, but as she gains life experience, she realizes this is not the person she is turning out to be. This is evident when she says, “I think I know, now, what I was trying to do. I was trying to subdue the city by turning it into a projection of my own growing pains.” As someone about to graduate college, I saw myself in this character, afraid that I won’t turn out to be the person I want to be and missing who I was in the past.

Silence of the Lambs... but with pottery.

The short story The Tale of the Porcelain God from Lafcadio Hearn’s Chinese Ghost Stories: Curios Tales of the Supernatural has a very interesting introduction. While the story itself is only a few pages long, a surprising amount of time is spent listing and describing the different types of pottery made by the followers of the god who created porcelain. While the style of writing used in this piece is somewhat unfamiliar to me, I think this section is meant to emphasize the all-knowing power of gods as well as show Bu’s skill with all forms of porcelain making.

                While I do not intend to say that I myself am as skilled in my chosen field of study, nor do I wish to imply that I would walk into a literal fire for the sake of making a flesh vase, I find the theme of putting your true self into your art relatable.  I am sure that with most passions, the passionate feel that they themselves are becoming a part of their art as much as it is becoming part of them. And I appreciate that this piece concludes with the Emperor finding that Bu’s gift really did come from the gods as opposed to the demonic. While the Emperor mourns at the loss of a skilled artisan, I think the ultimate moral is a positive one that rewards the pursuit of one’s passion.

                Here I am saying that the sacrifice of one’s self for one’s art is a positive, but Bu gave his soul with reluctance, only after crafting failed vase after failed vase. Furthermore, the vase utters the name of its creator and pulses with the life of Bu’s soul and, while he is said to be the Porcelain God at the end of the story, part of me wondered if he was trapped in the vase itself. Perhaps the same story which I read with an uplifting eye may, to someone else, appear more horrid and regretful. The sacrifice of someone too talented to live among humans may imply that, while we may strive to achieve greatness, we cannot appear too great, lest we be forced to become a god. Also the image of a vase made of flesh is not exactly charming; especially one that says “BU”.

My Vampire Boyfriend is Sucking the Life Out of Me

The section of Anne Rice's book, Interview With a Vampire, that struck me quite a bit was Luis’ final interaction with Babette. In this moment, Babette seemed to embody Luis’ frustration with own existence as a demonic being. Although he tried his best to help Babette and right Lestat’s wrongs against her family, she still sees him as a negative, other- worldly force. In this moment it seemed that Luis was never going to be anything more than the wildly vengeful killer Lestat embodied. While this interaction did not completely deter Luis from trying to be greater than Lestat, I really enjoyed the line “And then on this vast desolate landscape of night where I was standing alone and where Babette was only an illusion, I saw suddenly a possibility that I’d never considered before, a possibility from which I’d fled, rapt as I was with the world, fallen into the senses of the vampire, in love with the color and shape and sound and singing and softness and infinite variation,” in which Luis considers his efforts are worthless.

                I also found it interesting how many sections of the story end with fire. While fire is clearly a threat against vampires, specifically, it being one of the only things that can kill them, Rice also seems to use it a transitional device. When Luis’ slaves rise against him, he is forced from his home as it goes up in flames. When trying to find shelter with Babette, she throws a lantern at him, again causing him to flee. Claudia and Luis leave Lestat in a burning building when the escape to Europe and Luis also burns the theater in France, killing the vampires inside. It appears that almost every major life transition Luis faces is signified with fire, an imminent threat at first, forcing Luis to move forward and then becoming a tool Luis uses, perhaps signaling that Luis is finally free to make his own path in his life.

                Relationships are a major part of this story, the relationship between Luis and Lestat being the most prominent. I found it interesting that Luis repeatedly described his relationship with Lestat as if he were Lestat’s slave. While Lestat takes advantage of Luis is almost every way, financially, emotionally, and morally, Luis makes very few attempts to leave him, especially towards the beginning of their relationship. While I understood the implications of the almost romantic balance Luis and Lestat had before and during their raising of Claudia, the class discussion made this clearer to me. The toxic cycle of Luis wanting to leave and Lestat forcing him to stay out of guilt reflects many bad relationships in the real world. This is especially evident when contrasted with Luis and Armand’s relationship later in the book.

Note: A part that I really enjoyed was when Lestat first turned Luis and they had to sleep in the same coffin on the first night. It read as ridiculous fanfiction to me. Not to be offensive to Anne Rice as this was one of my favorite books I’ve read recently, but I guess that part aged in a very silly way. “Oh no! There’s only one bed!”

Uh Oh, My Science Project Has Achieved Sentience

I really enjoyed the framing of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. Not only did it parallel the actual story, but it made the story appear as if it had actually happened. It was stated in class that it was very “found footage”-esq and I completely agree.

                The book is very morally gray with it’s Gothic monster, Frankenstein’s monster. His first appearance is quite off putting, I think more so than the classic green appearance he has in media now. However, later on he is able to learn English and how to read and write. I was not expecting this, as I have always known Frankenstein’s monster as more… zombie- like. This makes it a lot harder to antagonize him in the way Victor does. However, I was then surprised when the monster confessed to murdering Victor’s younger brother. This bordered on irredeemable for me, despite the connection the reader is supposed to have made with the monster following his interaction with the DeLacey family. I don’t see the monster as totally evil, nor do I see Victor that way. This murder just caught me off guard, especially after Victor seemed to sense that the monster had done it without any evidence. I expected a twist. That maybe Justine, the maid, had killed the boy and Victor was going to have to face that the monster was more than an evil embodiment Victor believed him to be. But, no, the monster really did kill the boy.

                I found loneliness to be a pervasive aspect of this story. R.Walton, the framing device character who is writing the letters to his sister, says “I have no one near me, gentle yet courageous, possessed of a cultivated as well as of a capacious mind, whose tastes are like my own, to approve or amend my plans. How would such a friend repair the faults of your poor brother!” Walton wants someone to share his passion for exploration and knowledge. Later, Victor expresses how he would coop himself up, alone to study alchemy, rejecting friends or companions in pursuit of knowledge. He also laments that the professors at his school do not all share in his fascination with his studies. Frankenstein’s monster also expresses his loneliness in the world when he asks for Victor to make him a mate. I found it interesting that these characters all seem to feel isolated in their lives. The parallels between Walton and Victor are very strong, with both of them giving up companionship in pursuit of their passions. However, the monster is the only one who wants a companion and is denied it, resulting in more of Victor’s family being killed. Overall, I think isolation is emphasized to be something dangerous and reviled in Shelly’s story.

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