Gone too Far

Carlos Espinoza

February 21, 2010

Andrew Hageman

Gone Too Far

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is about a man, Victor Frankenstein, who creates a being that resembles a human being but is more of a superhuman because it is stature, strength and repulsiveness. It is also fairly making the being very distinguishable from any ordinary human being. In Karel Capek’s R.U.R. he talks about a group of scientists that produce robots or machines that resemble in every way shape and form a human being but are not. The robots possess expansive memory, superhuman strength, and follow orders from humans as they themselves do not feel emotions. As the story unfolds you find out that the robots are altered a bit and given temperament, which enables them to feel hate and allow them to revolt against their human masters. In both stories even though the creations are superior to man, they are treated unfairly and shunned by society.

Both stories revolve around the creators of the beings. In Frankenstein, Victor creates the creature from his love of science and his obsession with the “spark of life”. Through science he finds a way to bring life to a being who is composed of dead body parts. In R.U.R. the scientists create the robots to “better” mankind and stop all poverty and hunger by utilizing the robots to do everything for them. I believe in both cases the creations could have been used for good, but man could not allow it. Man could not handle the creature because we was so hideous and the robots in R.U.R. the robots were never seen as equals no matter how intelligent or how superior they seemed to be over man kind.

Both stories also seem to revolve around the necessity of love. In Frankenstein, the creature is abandoned by Victor from the moment he was brought to life. This could be equivalent to a father abandoning his child and wishing to have nothing to do with his offspring. The creature from then on is miserable with no guidance or communication with his father as he is left to roam the world alone. The creature decides to get back at his father by crushing him from the inside out. The creature destroys everyone who is significantly important to him. Anyone that could bring Victor happiness, that became the creature’s next target. The creature stated in the book that he did not enjoy taking the lives of others but he had to do so to achieve his goal to make Victor suffer for what he made him go through. In R.U.R. the robots do all labor for the human race so they no longer have to work hard for anything. After a while, humans stopped being born because no man was willing to work hard to conceive a child. After all humans but one were left on the planet, robots wanted to know how to reproduce themselves. The last human did not know how to reproduce robots, so the robots were left helpless. At the end of the story two robots seem to have fallen in love and if anything seem incredibly human. Perhaps the robots that are in love will find a way to reproduce, just like actual human do.

Like Father, like Son

Carlos Espinoza

ENL 3

Andrew Hageman

Like Father, like Son?

My first example of evidence is from pages 22-23 where Victor Frankenstein’s father tells him not to read Cornelius Agrippa because it was trash. Victor goes on to explain that if only his father would have explained that Cornelius’ principles had been disproved by modern science that perhaps none of the horrific incidents may have occurred.

My second example of evidence comes from page 40 where Victor is describing how wretched and miserable his creation looks. This occurs right before he decides to bring it to life. Victor brings his creature to life and immediately rushes out of the room to seek refuge from his creation.

My last example comes from page 120 where the creature asks Victor to create a companion for him. He asks Victor to please make him happy by creating him a mate would make the creature feel some sort of gratitude for his creator despite the fact that he was abandoned.

I chose the following examples of evidence because they all show examples of father and son relationships. The first and third examples are related because they both show how the son in the situation is asking something more of the father. In the first example Victor receives only a small comment instead of a thorough explanation to why Cornelius is garbage. The thorough explanation could have prevented the creation of the creature.

The second example differs from the other too because if focuses more on how Victor did not take responsibility for his creation and just abandoned it. Victor’s father did not exactly abandon him; he was just never entirely there for Victor. Victor’s father was only there to tell him what he should do and in a way just dictate his life. In the third example the creature is asking Victor to make him a companion and in a way make up for what he did to him.

Off the Edge

Carlos Espinoza
February 2, 2010

ENL 3

Andrew Hageman

Off the Edge

Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is a uniquely structured story. The story is unique because most of the story is told in 3^rd person omniscient with the exception of the transitions to 3^rd person subjective. The transition that caught my attention the most was between the first and second scene. The whole first part of the story describes the federal soldiers preparing to hang a man off the edge of Owl Creek Bridge. Part one leads up to the moment right before they let the man drop. The sentence after that flashes back in time and introduces the man being hung, his wife and a federal soldier. This flashback left me at the edge of my seat; I was not expecting the scene to suddenly go back in time. The whole first part of the story got me so anxious to see where all of the setting descriptions were leading to. Ambrose Bierce leaves me hanging as he continues to unfold his story.

I enjoyed Ambrose Bierce’s manipulation of chronological order in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” I am a big fan of the tool in movies and it has now transferred over to writing as well. I like to be kept on my toes, wanting to turn the page and keep reading to find out the “whole story.” The story begins with a man, Payton Farquhar, who is about to be hung off of the Owl Creek Bridge, then introduces Payton and his wife with a bit of background in the second part, then finally in the third part finishes the story with the description of Payton Farquhar’s struggle for survival.

Another transition that I really enjoyed was in the third part of the story when the lieutenant says to his men, “Attention, company!..Shoulder arms!...Ready!...Aim!...Fire!” and Payton dives as deep as deep as he could underwater to escape the bullets (6). As I read this part in the story I imagined the camera or the point of view focused on Payton in the creek when all of a sudden the dialogue quickly moves the shifts the attention to the soldiers and then right after they fire, the camera zips back to Mr. Farquhar as he navigates through the water.