tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8692381608294018617.post886446057141759315..comments2023-11-05T07:27:43.837-05:00Comments on Narrative and Technology: Uncovering Frankenstein's Monster's True IdentityAdamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16302919444091859459noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8692381608294018617.post-64761501416866469192014-01-19T14:30:02.791-05:002014-01-19T14:30:02.791-05:00Your definition is vaguely expressed, and it's...Your definition is vaguely expressed, and it's not clear why you pick it. The rest of the essay is quite clear, though. You define humanity in three ways, and devote three paragraphs to asking whether the monster is human. More focus would have been better here. The discussion of the monster's physical form is somewhat obvious, and much less interesting than the latter two categories. Your discussion of his social development is good, especially because it reveals that you understand that there are *problems* here. After all, he is engaged in close observation of social life, but has none of his own, other than a handful of aborted and usually violent encounters. Is this really social life? Or is mere understanding/observation of social interactions enough to make him human? You are raising problems and should be asking questions here, rather than glossing them over. Your discussion of the monster's acquisition of language is fine, but also rather abbreviated. You could have attended more to the extreme haste and proficiency of his development. We might ask, for instance, if it's really human to develop language *outside* of a social context rather than *within* one (your two categories are related, although you don't do much to relate them). But you avoid problems and complexities. I do like your note about the closeness of the monster's observations, though.<br /><br />Overall: you should have done one of these three things well rather than all three of them hastily. Or you could have done language & social development in a more integrated way (which might be the most promising way to handle a revision). You are breezing over interesting problems, rather than engaging with them - a revision on this topic should really work with rather than evade difficulties.Adamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16302919444091859459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8692381608294018617.post-57442085392851766612014-01-17T08:18:51.882-05:002014-01-17T08:18:51.882-05:00First of all, I enjoyed reading your essay and thi...First of all, I enjoyed reading your essay and think it is very well written. The examples you chose from the text strongly support your academic source’s qualifications for the monster to be human. There were a lot of examples from the text too, which is good. One thing I would change is your last sentence in the third paragraph where you use the word “my” explicitly. I understand this is an opinion based prompt but I didn’t feel like that sentence flowed with the tone of the rest of the essay. Maybe you could change the line to read “He has a growing attachment to the cottagers, and wants to further his relations with them socially.” Or something along those lines so that it is still a good transition into your next paragraph.<br />My advice if you were to revise this essay for an assignment later would be to add another source and/or definition of what it is to be human, but from a non-scientific source. You only have one source to defend your thoughts in this essay, which is fine for a short essay like this one. I wrote on the same prompt and found Kenneth Burke’s definition of man surprisingly applicable to the monster.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16071575339711729266noreply@blogger.com