Quotation: I chose to read the excerpt, “Just Friends? Frankenstein and the Friend to Come” by Julie Carlson. The quote I chose to pull is found on page 290 in the last paragraph. “These espoused features of Victor’s “friend” indicate that difficulties relating to others are not exclusive to scientists, though they may be disproportional in men… Frankenstein exposes the costs of pursuing perfectibility through either the scientific or literary arena in its depictions of masculinists overreaching, playing god, unleashing new species without concern for the consequences. But it does so by tying “perfection” to “friend”, the only context in which the word is used, and indicating reservations about this connection (Shelley 1994, 203). The objection is not to Victor’s contention that, as a self, a human is only a “half made up” creature or to his assertion that having a friend is the best means of fashioning that self into a friend of humanity.”
Comment/Connection: I just want to start off by saying I chose this excerpt because the whole book started off on the basis of friendship and that desire to find it. This leads to how this quote fits not only in this excerpt but also in the novel. Victor thought he was alone in wanting to find the perfect “friend” as he is a scientist there must be no others like him (also considering no one really thought like him growing up and even into college). But in the end, it is evident that he realizes that everyone has difficulties it is not just him that feels to be an outcast. In terms of this quote fitting in this article, there is mention of African Americans and women struggling to live freely and being the ones who actually pay the high costs whereas the white men do not have to worry as much because they are at the highest of social hierarchies. However, they still do end up paying some costs especially when they are looking for perfection that is not in reality achievable. Essentially it gets at the fact that scientists or in the case of the article, white men, are not the only ones that pay the price of wanting to achieve things. There are other individuals that have to pay even higher costs because of their gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, etc.
This passage really makes you think about how conceited and closed-minded white men can be or even some individuals in general. There is no argument here because it is the reality no one can do something and there not be consequences this has been proven in every version of films, books, scripts with Genies. But in the end, I think this excerpt does connect to the theme of the class of Victorian Monsters because we do not see this kind of mindset as much anymore it really shows how much people have changed. In addition, the idea that white men were looked at more as kind of monsters during these times because they themselves would not look to others as full human beings like Victor.
Question: This passage doesn’t really raise too many questions for me it is more of agreeance with everything that is being said. But it does make me wonder, if Victor and Walton had met each other sooner or if they had not lost a parent then would they have gone on the search for “science” and “discovery” in the beginning? Or would they have realized that what they have right in front of them which is wholehearted friendships is all they need?
