MacNeil’s scholarly article views Harry Potter and the Goblet of fire through a feminist lens to discuss the differences between the rights of the house elves based on their gender. This discrimination, because of its basis on gender, is entirely physical. MacNeil also points to race to show that law is based on a system, a system that caters to white men who hold power over those you are viewed as lesser than. However, gender seems to come from many different elements, including voice and their intentions, this being defined as their need to establish relationships with other women. It is through these criteria that these inequalities are able to be manipulated and abused. A solution would have to lie at the systematic level, one where the definition of law must be changed so that its practice is. In regards to Marxism, a radical solution is the only solution, with those in power being stripped of their privileges and giving more power to the work man (or elf) like Dobby and Winky.
Category: Blog ENG 334
In regards to reading texts closely and thinking critically:
Close reading and critical thinking were skills I developed throughout my UNE career as an English major, writing multiple essays in which I looked at a piece of literature and made an argument about the particular work that piece was capable of performing and and centered on a particular theme and made a claim about it. Evidence of this can be found on my ePortfolio site in the Essays section, one focusing on American Romanticism found in Young Goodman Brown and the other focusing on the motif of eyes that permeates the novel Woman at Point Zero.
In this course, much of my close ready can be seen in my ENG 334 entries. In Entry Seven, I was able to discuss O’Gorman’s work and what it is capable of doing as well as its limitations. By showing how the play In the Blood and the Scarlet Letter are similar, as claims O’Gorman, I was also able to show how they were dissimilar. My analysis of different texts can also be seen in Entry Two and Entry Five, where is talked about the critical histories and Frankenstein and The Scarlett Letter, which allowed me to view the novels through different lenses which wouldn’t have been possible without developed close reading and critical thinking skills due to apparent consideration of different viewpoints and speculation of their interpretations.
In regards to conducting research in literary and cultural studies:
I have conducted research in this class and the one that proceeds it: Introduction to Literary Theory and Criticism. In that class, I picked an author from the Maine Women Writer’s Collection, Carolyn Chute. Using the primary sources I gathered from her log, I was able to develop my own ideas about her different projects, namely the Second Maine Militia. From there, I viewed her work through multiple literary lenses, including formalist and cultural critical. My research led me to importance of satire in the modification of media and how Chute used satire as a tool to make her work memorable.
In this class, I conducted research on Frankenstein by utilizing the MLA Bibliography. Within the database, I found an article titled “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the Guillotine, and Modern Ontological Anxiety” which discussed the dichotomies present in the work of fiction and their cultural relevancy. The essay can be found in the same section on my ePortfolio site as the two mentioned before. What is noteworthy is that I was able to name my own dichotomy I found in the novel that the author of the secondary criticism did not mention, as well as expand on her points and identified the limitations of her argument to further my own.
In regards to communicating effectively in oral and written modes:
It was through both scholarly writing and creative writing that I was able to find my literary voice. Much of my scholarly writing occupies this site, and my biggest take away from honing these skills at UNE has been organization and strategically planning my essays so that they are clear to the reader and deliver a moving argument. Much of my revision is focused on this clarity, which is shown when comparing my rough and final drafts of my Methods Midterm, again found in the essays section of this site. And in oral presentation, presenting at the Research Symposium allowed me to further my oral communication skills with my base being established in my years of doing musical theater.
However, my awareness of the audience was truly developed in my creative writing endeavors. On this site, you can see that I have written songs and short stories, both crafted with the reader or listener in mind, knowing that these forms are able to make emotional impacts on those present. It is the contrast between these two methods of writing that made me aware that while different projects cater to different groups, it is important to remember that a group will be mixed with scholars and laymen, or those hungry for fiction and those who could care less.
In my essay, I would like to show how addiction is present in the Harry Potter novels and how this connects with addiction within our society. Specifically, by showing the commonalities between magic and medicine, I want to show how addiction is created and how it can be best dealt with. What works with my draft currently is my personal approach and my need to bridge my two disciplines. What also works is qualifying the parallels between medical society and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. This step will allow me to start a conversation about addiction and how it is depicted in Harry Potter as a character’s yearning and how it too can manifest as a physical necessity. My challenge will be to show the implications of my research. It will be difficult to support my conclusions because this seems to be unexplored territory. I find it important to make these conjectures because it shows what can be done with literature and how it can serve as a medical application. I think that the solution may lie in connecting with my panel partner and exploring the big questions, such as “What can we do with literature?” and “Does art imitate culture?” By answering these, I will be able to establish and answer my thesis that addiction in literature and within society share many parallels and that the answers to addiction in literature may then offer solutions to addiction in Western society. This might be a stretch, but I find it necessary in terms of my personal goals previously stated.
Siobhán O’Gorman in her essay Reorienting scarlet letters: Suzan-Lori Parks’ and Marina Carr’s Hester plays discusses how Parks’ play In the Blood demonstrates some of the ideas explored in The Scarlet Letter. O’Gorman states that In the Blood raises questions that “can be seen panoramically to ‘match’ Hawthorne’s interrogation of labelling, public shaming and social hypocrisy” (49). It is especially true that social hypocrisy is present in both of the concerned works, with The Scarlet Letter demonstrating Dimmesdale’s hypocrisy and how he keeps it separate from sin and how the other characters in In the Blood and similar during their confession scenes. They chose to shame that Hester for her promiscuity while also capitalizing on it.
However, this reading does have some limits, namely how O’Gorman admits that “Parks’ ensuing characterization of Hester as a selfless, loving and optimistic caregiver undermines the way in which the protagonist is initially presented. We sympathize with this struggling, stoical Hester throughout” (50). While this may read as a comparison to The Scarlet Letter, it actually shows how the two works are dissimilar. In The Scarlet Letter, the reader is put into Hester’s position and, because of how unfair her treatment is based on her crime and the fact that Dimmesdale is just as guilty but is hiding his sin, it allows for empathy. It is rather different that he are able to sympathize with Parks’ Hester, which can come from a place of pity. Both Hester’s are received in very different ways. I think a missed opportunity would be to mention how people’s perception of promiscuity today is engrained in society and comes from those Puritan beliefs. This could pair well with how poverty is at the societal level as well, and that the blame should not be on the individual.
In my research, I have found three sources that relate to Frankenstein and political criticism, particularly with regards to the French aristocracy and the French Revolution.
My first source is Frankenstein’s Monster: The Modern Leviathan which examines Shelley’s novel through the lens of Hobbesian contract theory, which looks at the foundation of society and humanity’s push away from nature. In relation to the French Revolution, this theory provides a justification for the revolutionaries in their tyranny against a government of tyrants. Moreover, Frankenstein is viewed as a reflection of that struggle between the aristocracy and the peasants. If I were to do my project on political criticism and Frankenstein, I believe there are many examples I can pull from this work to support Frankenstein’s political and historical connection to the Revolution.
My second source is Frankenstein’s Hidden Skeleton: The Psycho-Politcs of Oppression. This source looks specifically at Frankenstein and his role in the novel as a member of the aristocracy and brings up the prevalence of incest in the novel and how the scientist had to create life in order prevent said incest. As a biology major as well, I could elaborate more on the biological and medical history surrounding incest amongst the aristocracy and how it put limits on and brought about threats to their power over the poor. I would use this source more to qualify the notion that Frankenstein is representative of aristocracy in the novel.
My third source is The Frankensetin of the French Revolution: Nogaret’s automaton tale of 1790. This source talks of a French novel that echoes the story of Frankenstein but has stronger connection to the French revolution. Through this connection, Frankenstein can be more strongly connected to the French Revolution. Similar to my second source, this source contains material that can better qualify the monster as a representative of the French poor, given the time that the monster spent with the De Laceys.
When reading A Critical History of The Scarlet Letter, what struck me was the discussion the novel’s state as a moral tale, how early Christian interpretations claimed that The Scarlet Letter “was actually a morally instructive, even puritanical, work that warned against the pitfalls of sensuality in general and adulterous misdeeds in particular” (274). In regards to this stance, I sided with the minority (James and Duyckink) who dismiss this claim of immorality. Accepting this puts fourth the relativity of morality and how perspective can affect what is viewed as right and wrong. From the Christian lens, devotion and commitment are values held highly, while James argues that the book is “highly moral in character” (276). This morality holds truth in love higher.
Relativity in moral character becomes even more important in the new formalist criticism and feminist criticism. With criticism came analysis of Hawthorne’s use of symbols to convey morality, with Pearl being utilized for this purpose. By using this character, it was shown that that “humanity, not nature, is the source of the morality” (280). And this strengthens the argument that morality is relative to specific persons. Each lens of criticism seems to view the different ways in which morality is expressed and explored in the novel, which can even be seen in the clash between Hester and the Puritans. Right and wrong and be relative, and for society, that can be a dangerous notion.
Murphy’s project involves the vivisection debate of the late ninetieth century. She examines the complexities of the debate and how it became a vehicle to drive moral insurrections occurring at the time. This moment of cultural confusion became even more complex when the state was called in to deliberate on this moral conundrum. Murphy looks at how this debate centered around what it means to be human and how vivisection is both harmful and helpful in establishing this.
To forward her analysis, I would look more closely at the view of science and how it was attributed to the academic and economic elite, and therefore can be attributed to cruelty. I believe that many of the anti-vivisectionists were comparing the cruelty the elite expelled upon animals to that expelled upon the working class. It may also be helpful to examine the contradiction that is apparent when taking into account how vivisection is meant to explore what it means to be human, but also, while pursuing this venture, vivisection is inhumane. I would play devil’s advocate and wonder how we can know what is human if we deny pursuits to do so, arguing inhumanity when it cannot be accurately defined. In all fairness, it could be said that the antivivisection movement is as much as an attack on the scientific community as it is a playpen for moral debate.
I would also like to highlight the notion of dehumanization and how being human is attributed to moral actions, with Murphy saying “antivivi- sectionists would argue that the practice of vivisection dehumanized those who engaged in it” (373). But again, this goes against what vivisectionist are trying to attain. They wish to discover what it means to be human, while antagonists of this notion believe that this is already common knowledge.
In light of the Annotation Assignment, I would like to first explain what I understood from Otis’s essay. She believes that the works produced by Collins and Wells are akin to tools used to “retry” David Ferrier, a famous physiologist who utilized vivisection in his research. In 1881, he was put on trial for the misuse of two primate in his experiments. Both Collins and Wells wrote novels in opposition with Ferrier (in Well’s case, more indifference), and Otis shows how they went about this.
I would say the part of the paper that I connected to most was when Otis stated that “[a]lmost no one has ever thought that Heart and Science is a good novel. Valerie Pedlar, who has also pointed to Ferrer’s work as a source, has pronounced it ‘an unashamed piece of polemic cast in fictional form.’ As the preface indicates, it was written to prove a point rather than to tell a story” (37). I found this line to be hysterical and maybe unfair, and I would ask Otis who is on trial here. I also enjoyed when Otis recounts Benjulia’s remark that he does not care for dogs because they bark, as if they would save him from being labeled a vivisectionist.
For a question, I suppose I would ask Otis why she chose to compare Heart and Science to The Island of Dr. Moreau. It seemed to me that both were anti-vivisection propaganda, with the former being more extreme than the later. Wouldn’t it be more beneficial to find a piece of literature that is pro-vivisection, to show the other side of the trial rather than persecute Ferrier further?
And I would challenge Otis when she says that the two novels used “offer critiques of science far more complex and insightful than those of Ferrier’s prosecutors” (28). I believe that the works are more complex given that they are presenting a theme from a speculative place, presenting a possible world where vivisection goes unchecked, but the arguments made against Ferrier and vivisection that Otis gives are just as insightful and complex. They simply come in a different form.
Lastly, I admired how Otis presented the paper. It allowed a reader unknowing of Ferrier, his trial, vivisection, or the literature to follow to understand why there was vivisection, what the possible good was, what the concrete bad was, who was in opposition, and what the results of the opposition came to be.
Smith, in his introduction, talks about the more popular lens in which Shelly’s novel is viewed: feminist, communist, religious, and so one. Smith, though, does ground these examples in their relevance to Shelley’s experience and the events that took place when she wrote Frankenstein, Smith talking of her “immersion in the ideas about education, society and morality professed by her father, Godwin, and her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft; but also Humphry Davis on chemistry, Erasmus Darwin on biology” (547). Smith establishes that the themes prominent in Frankenstein are rooted in response to Shelley’s reality. This leads into a conversation concerning racism and slavery.
Smith gives multiple instances in which he adds a racial discourse to some discussions that have already taken place. When looking at Frankenstein as a response to Paradise Lost, Smith points out that the monster is referred to as a Calib, or “natural man” (550), as if he were a native of the free world. In addition, Smith talks of the creature’s yellow skin and how this is a reference to those living in the Far East.
Smith also believes that the monster’s learning of language is not indicative of a birth myth, but is rather an example of how natives had to learn the language of their occupiers during colonialism. In conjunction with this, the creature does not know his age, much like some of the natives during the post-colonial period.
What I find most interesting is the discussion pertaining to the monster’s lust for a companion, specifically a female one. Smith said that this mirrors the experience of natives and slaves who were repressed sexuality due to fear that they would bring harm to white women, with the intensifying of “Elizabeth Saxon’s features as the flower of white girlhood” (560).
As a senior English major in college, on the precipice of receiving my degree, I contend that I am perhaps more haunted by the novel Frankenstein than Frankenstein is by his monster. My history with the piece of literature and the cultural phenomenon surrounding it originated from watching the 1931 Frankenstein movie with my cult-classic-loving uncle when I was eight. I took the film at face value and I didn’t dive deeper, comparing it to the other monster movies I had seen. It wasn’t until high school that I read the novel by Mary Shelley and since coming to UNE, I have read it three more times.
After reading the Critical History by Smith, I found connection almost immediately. Every discussion I’ve ever participated in involving Frankenstein has focused on morality and ponders who is the true villain: Frankenstein or his monster? I was surprised to read that Percy claimed that there was no physical foe, but rather the enemy is human nature. The mass disagreement felt familiar. The discussion that I’ve participated in have almost always ended with Frankenstein being blamed as the evil one, the creator of a monster by giving him life and then subsequently abandoning him. And I believe that is where I place myself within the critical history, mostly because that is where I have been led. My placement here is supported by the use of Frankenstein in education, where the apparent moral ambiguity has become ground for classroom discussion.
Outside of my classroom, due to my other interests, I have found footing in the idea of Frankenstein being a Romantic tale. Much of my education has involved the study and analysis of the Romantic movement and its pursuit of reason and science, a reaction to the Enlightenment. Shelley provides vivid imagery of nature and the perversion of it, and I found it interesting that this status has been questioned due to Shelley’s unorthodox methods. As a Biology major also, I was intrigued by the analysis of the science within Frankenstein and the questions of what constitutes a human being, the implications of pseudoscience, and the reality and purpose of life.
Upon reflection, I see now why this book was assigned first in this class. The book has been read and critiqued many times and viewed through a multitude of lenses. This text appears to have the ability to used in favor of an argument while at the same time acting as a counterpoint. What that tells me is that throughout this semester, we will be assessing the elasticity of different works. We will establish what they tell us and then argue why they say nothing. I found the Critical History revelatory to something I think I have observed and talked about before, but reading it now prepares me for what is to come.
