Frankenstein on T.V

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a story that was written a long time ago, and for the most part I figured that people would only really know about the story if it were to be studied in a class. If it wasn’t for Women Writers then I really would have never paid much attention to the story. I had heard of Frankenstein, and knew the basics before I had read it for class, but I didn’t really know anything else about it. I was very surprised to see that there was a special on television when I went home this weekend on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. My parents have satellite and this special was on like five or six channels. I found it worthy of bringing up because the story is so old and there are people doing a television special about it.

Mona Lisa Smile

On the subject of women and education in the 20th century, one thing I was wondering was if the movie “Mona Lisa Smile” was actually based on some truth. I watched it over the break and it seems that even after women were allowed to participate in the education system they went to university or colleges and they were really just finishing schools. The girls would be among the most intelligent in the country and they would basically go to school until they got married. Many of the girls in this movie would be able to go to the most prestige schools in the U.S, but they would not go because they thought that if they went to school and had a career then they would not get married and would not have families. The girls not only had classes that were academic classes, but they also took classes on manners and setting the table and others things that helped the girls in becoming women. Even though they were able to attend classes that would challenge them, they had to take classes that men would not even dream about taking. The movie really shows how one sided the system was.

Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf. Well considering my presentation was on education in the early 20th century, I do have some questions. I do not understand why it was chosen to look at “A Room of One’s Own,” and not “Three Guineas” even though “A Room of One’s Own” discusses the topic of education it seems that “Three Guineas” deals with it more. Either way it was very interesting to see just how women felt about the education system. I didn’t really realize that women felt this way, or how male dominated the education system was until I began to research my essay. Like I said in my presentation, men designed the education system for men, and women were really left out in the process. Women were seen as the weaker sex, and it was believed that they did not deserve the same opportunities as men. I can really understand why women were bitter about the entire situation, they did deserve equal rights.

Jane Eyre Videos

Watching the three different Jane Eyre’s in class was interesting. It kind of brought everything together. This poor girl was labeled from the very time she entered her benefactor’s house. It was like a Cinderella story. Jane thought that leaving the house would mean people would love her and she would get to grow up and be happy. Until the very end it seemed like nobody really loved, the men just wanted her to treat her bad.
Seeing how different directors changed the text and scenes was very interesting. There were obviously many different interpretations of the text and the scenes were very different. The actors themselves had no resemblance between the three chosen for each different video. One Jane was very pretty, the other average, and the other looked like a five year old girl through the entire movie even after she had grown up. The tone of voice in which the actors spoke was also interesting to see between three different people.
One thing I did notice that would not have been picked up on from reading the book was that in all three movies Jane was never pretty, she always wore dark or gray colored clothing and her hair was not done up as nice as the other girls. She always looked like an outcast.
Having the ability to watch the movies or even parts of it this time after I have read the book was interesting. I was able to see just how bad Jane was treated and between verbal and physical abuse, like making Jane stand on a chair all day she did grow up to be a descent girl, with a lot of kids they would have been more likely to rebel and act out after growing up being treated like an outsider and thinking that nobody ever loved them.

Jane Eyre

I must say that I never really did like this story, and I didn’t fall in love with the movie either. Any mention of child abuse in a movie or in a story or even in a discussion I get upset. I think that because I am really touchy when it comes to the topic of child abuse and this story is dealing with that topic I can not interest myself with what is happening throughout the book. One thing I do find interesting is that, abuse is such a quiet topic and weather it is child abuse, spousal abuse, verbal abuse nobody wants to talk about it. This is a period where nothing really goes unsaid, and it almost seem like people are scared to bring up the topic because they do not know what will come of it. This book was written in 1847, if we still today do not like to deal with abuse, why was this book such a hit. Did it bother people of that time that people were getting hurt mentally and physically, or did they not believe that was taking place.
Another question that this book brought to my mind was that did Bronte live with abuse? It just seems to me, for someone in 1847 to write a story like this, it makes me believe this is not just a story. I would almost say that this is how Bronte lived. It all seems very surreal, like the people of this time should not have even been introduced to abuse. I know abuse occurs everywhere and always has, but it seems like a 20th century topic. It seems to me that the people who were around when this book was written should have been appalled by the topics in this book, not impressed with them.

Short Stories

I have to start out with saying how much I like short stories. I find with novels it is easy to get bored because either you are waiting for something specific to happen or you are reading to finish the book. Short stories are different, they are long enough to provide helpful information about the characters and the story, but the story is short enough that half way through you are not bored and tired of reading the same thing. With short stories they have to get right to the point because the author does not have the ability to waste space with useless information.
One of the stories that we were assigned to read interested me, this was "The Parvenue" as soon as I had seen it was written by Shelley, I had to read over it. I have read in so many different books that "Frankenstein" was the only great thing she ever wrote, and because I really do not read anything I do not have to I didn't get a chance to see this. There is such a difference between the two writings that it is kind of hard to believe that she wrote both. I know in a short story you can not be as detailed as you would be with a novel, but wow. I found the story to be dry and boring. Even though I was not particularly found of "Frankenstein" it was one amazing that a women came up with that story and two, the detail and skill that went into that work, it was not seen in "The Parvenue." I must say that from what I have read by Shelley "Frankenstein" was the best so far.

Short Stories

Mary Shelley

After I finished reading Frankenstein, I decided to research a little about Mary Shelley to see what she was like and to maybe learn how a woman in the 1800’s came up with a story like Frankenstein. From my research I discovered that she literally dreamed up the story. She wrote a story that haunted her in her dreams, and was probably the best thing she ever wrote. It has been said that Frankenstein was the only work by Shelley that was good. People think that almost everything written by her after that was a let down, and did not compare to the skill and effort put into Frankenstein. Shelly was very young when she wrote Frankenstein, only 19. After listening to ghost stories she decided to write a horror story and that she did. There was so much killing and violence in Frankenstein that it was very hard to believe that a woman wrote it. To me women in the 1800’s were innocent and fragile. I didn’t really think they even thought of violence in such depth. Surprise to me Shelley did.

Frankenstein

I found the novel to be very drawn out. I have A problem doing more work then I have to and it just seemed like the story could have been a lot shorter then it actually was. From the very first of the novel you can almost see how crazy the writer and the narrator were. There was one part of the story almost at the beginning that bothered me out really bad, and that was when he wrote a letter to Elizabeth. If I am not correct she was dead when he wrote the letter. I noticed the letters to people and to Victor through the entire novel, but one question I did have was is the novel a letter. It seemed like the story was divided into letters, then the main part of the story was just one long letter. Considering the novel was written so long ago I figured the language would be a lot more difficult to understand but it was fairly easy to read and digest.

This blogging stuff is harder than I thought it would be. It has taken me a week to figure out what I am doing.
I have noticed that many of us are very quick to give our opinions on who we like and dislike as a writer of an artist, but in many cases when can not really explains why this is.
when it comes to Wordrworth it is very fair to say that with out one we probably wouldn't have had the other. They seemed to have worked together as a team and Dorothy did a lot more work for William then most people would have. It is almost like she was his eyes. She went over his work and decided what was good and what was bad. I also think that if she wouldn't have had so much experience helping William, then her work would not have been as good as it is. The poem we looked at on Monday that William and Dorothy both wrote about was very different between the two of them. I heard many people say that they liked the poem when they read what Dorothy wrote, but not when they read it by William. Not to sound sexist but when it comes to talking about the beauty of things women seem to be able to get their points across much easier. It is in our nature that we have an easier time talking about how and why we think things are beautiful. Do not get me wrong I also believe that men can do the same thing, but for some men it is more difficult. It almost seems forced and painful when men try to describe just how beautiful things are.