Some of the "gothic" elements of Frankenstein include paranormal characters, (Frankenstein's creation), themes of cruel death (the death of Frankenstein's mother), and loneliness and isolation of the creation. One particular theme that I noticed and thought was interesting was the theme of isolation and loneliness, particularly abandonment. The theme of abandonment is present throughout the entirety of the novel in some way or another. Frankenstein feels abandoned by the death of his mother, which throws him into a obsession about life and death. This obsession leads to the creation of the "monster." The monster is deemed uncanny and a terrible mistake by Frankenstein the second that he created it, and abandons his "child" per say, trying to avoid it for the majority of the novel. This issue keeps escalating. Frankenstein starts to feel paranoid that his creation is following him and trying to get to him, and when his creation is away from him he's paranoid that he's out there somewhere causing other people harm. This neglect undoubtedly effects the re-born monster, rationally causing the monster to act out to try and gain his creator's attention. While their lives both continue in a string of events that have to do with abandonment and the resulting conflicts, Frankenstein eventually dies of illness. When his creation learns of this, he retreats to die in the ice, because he spent his entire life trying to gain his creator's attention and acceptance. I think that this theme is the most important and prevalent throughout the novel and provides insight about gothic themes and how they can even relate to reality.
For this week, I read the short story Come to Venus Melancholy by Thomas M. Disch. The story had quite a bit of dark tones to it, as well as taking some time to understand. I think the element of surprise was something that played a big part in this story. Something that appears to be so normal, so close to what we know, can be the complete opposite. In this story, in the beginning, I thought that the character was monologuing about their life. The element of surprise here is that the "her" is a cyborg of sorts, that used to be a human, but is now a computer in a house. The second surprise is that the environment of the swamp isn't from planet Earth, it's on planet Venus. The final surprise was the cyborg's confession of both love and craziness. This was quite a short read and an interesting perspective since it's told from the cyborg's point of view. I feel like in many of these stories there is often a hero, and the story is narrated from that hero's...
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