Loss of Innocence

As we view the theme of loss of innocence over a larger variety of works in literature and other areas in the world, we see it’s appearance in many different forms. We’ve already established this ideal, which is why “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman provides us with a very unique outlet for these ideals. Now allow me to pose my main question about this story:

Is Jane Sane?

Other than the fact that my question rhymes, I strongly believe that Jane is not sane throughout the passage of the story mainly due to the point of view. As we read the story, we are able to narrow the point of view. The point of view is a first person narrative that Jane is telling the story in. “He said we came here solely on my account, that I was to have perfect rest and all the air I could get.“(Gilman 1) This first person narrative point of view is crucial for the story and how we read it. Most of the time we are under the possibly false pretense that Jane is a sane women, but what if she isn’t? As we read the story, we forget that it is indeed Jane herself who is writing and narrating it.

Through the yellow wallpaper and her manifestation with it, we slowly see her lose her her sanity, but never once question the validity of every statement she makes. For all we readers know, she could be manipulating us throughout the story. Regardless we can’t be sure or fully satisfied with our faith in Jane and her possibly psychotic world.

Now that we’ve established that she is insane to an extent, we can change our whole outlook or viewpoint on this topic. What does this all mean for loss of innocence for, not the story’s characters, but we the readers?

The readers lose their innocence of their bias, because depending on which angle one read the book from, one’s view on the intensity of Jane’s sanity changes. If you came into the story following Jane and believing her story like many of us did, you are in the innate bias of supporting her as the protagonist in the story. Most people will brush this off and continue on with their lives not comprehending more than her general conflict. But when you introduce this viewpoint and re-read the story, you realize that you may have been fooled the entire time. You lose your innocence and naivete to the underlying fact of the matter: Jane was the one directing her story and could have shaped it in any way she wanted.

If we have evidence that she did go insane with the yellow wallpaper near the end of the story, we can assume on those grounds that she wasn’t perfectly sane. And if she wasn’t perfectly sane, how can we validate any way she set up or explains parts of her story or her life.

And if that is the case, do John and the house or the wallpaper exist? Or are they just a figment of the white wall of the asylum jane is trapped in.

To next time,

Special K

Hello again! Its me, Smitty. It's Tuesday so lets get started!

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a roller coaster ride of a story. First off we have Jane, the heroine of our story. She and her husband have rented out a mansion for 3 months so that she can rest to cure her illness. Inside her room covering the walls is this ghastly yellow wallpaper that drives her to insanity. In class we talked a lot about how the wallpaper was a project of her insanity, and how condescending john is, and how Jane might be suffering through postpartum depression. But I don’t recall discussing the ending of the story where Jane gets possessed by the woman in the wallpaper. When Jane rips he paper off the wall she says, “I wonder if they all come out of the paper as I did?” I was extremely confused at that point- Jane seemed like she was becoming the woman in the wallpaper. And at the very end she says, “I’ve got out at last…in spite of you and Jane.” Wait what? So in the end, Jane is possessed by this woman that she sees in the wallpaper, but what does that mean? Maybe she, like the woman, felt trapped and wanted out. Jane relates to this woman in this want of freedom so this possibly is why Jane allows herself to become obsessed by this wallpaper. She is trapped by the bars of society and confined by male dominance and female subservience. So maybe she’s not possessed by this woman, but liberated. The woman behind the wallpaper represents all woman seeking freedom in a man’s world.

* This is just a side note but it was really baffling me. What does it mean to "creep?" In the Story Jane keeps saying that this woman in the wall is always creeping about. Like what does that even mean? But then all of a sudden it hit me. "...we got a new dance so get up on your feet/ it’s real easy to do, and it's called 'The Creep'/ Let your hands flap around like a Marionette/ Pop your knees up and down, sh-sh-shaking your neck." This exert is from the song “Creep” By the Lonely Island ft Nikki Minaj. As soon as I made the connection between the two I knew- that I would never be able to see it differently. The link to the song is below:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLPZmPaHme0&nohtml5=False" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLPZmPaHme0&nohtml5=False

-Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen

Hello, hello! Number Six back again with one more blogabout Frankenstein.  Although this may be a bit out of place for our website, I want to address how manipulation plays a key role in the novel.  Technically, this manipulation drives thenovel and therefore the characters' loss of innocence, so we're all good here.  On one side of the manipulation we have the creature, while on the other, we have none other than Victor Frankenstein himself.  In this case, both characters attempt to use manipulation to their advantage, but in my eyes, only one prevails, and that is the monster.  

Throughout the novel, Victor Frankenstein uses manipulation in order to try and defend himself for the creation of his monster.  Strangely enough, I mainly see his manipulation at work on himself.  Even though almost every progression in the story should prove him to be at fault, he manipulated himself into believing that he is only a victim of an uncontrollable series of events.  

On th eother side of the manipulation is the creature.  Truthfully, I sympathize much more with him than I do with Victor, which can only be proof of the success of his manipulation.  With his side, the manipulation is much more explicitly used and is meant to make others feel bad for him and the hard life he has had to endure.  The monster specifically uses this method on his creator, Frankenstein, in his nonstop quest to gain a female creature like himself.  The fact that Victor even decides to listen to the monster and begin the process of creating the female monster displays how well manipulation worked here and how successful it was in making Victor feel sorry for the monster.  How diabolical, right?

Even though I said I would be taking a quick break from analyzing the story in terms of loss of innocence, I lied.  I just want to briefly tie it back to that theme and clarify that Victor's eventual breaking of that manipulative hold the monster had on his is what ultimately leads to both characters' loss of innocence.  It is the original trigger leading the the numerous events which all play a role in that combines loss of innocence.  

Tragically, this is my last blog post about Frankenstein, but have no fear!  I'll be back before you know it with some new analysis on loss of innocence and some new literature to dissect.  

Until next time, 

-Number Six

I’m getting real tired of all this talk about innocence, ugh. Anyway, once again on a screen near you, Harry F’n Potter! Alright, now, back on topic, loss of innocence. What I want to address this time is how this stereotypically “bad” occurrence can have effects that are not totally adverse. Usually, a “loss of innocence” connotates the lost of some type of purity or ignorance that allowed for a more idealistic, I guess, view of the world. But, in actuality, a “loss of innocence” is an integral part of human growth. Children are encouraged to have dreams, although for most it’s impossible, (cynical, I know)but as they grow up are told to be more “realistic.” There comes a point where you realize the world isn’t some big fairytale where everyone is gonna live happily ever after.

I felt that this feeling, this slow acceptance of reality, is what the monster feels as it beholds Victor’s dead body in chapter 24. The monster reaches an epiphany of sorts and discovers that his life never held any real meaning. He talks about how he had hopes of acceptance but over time, through the cruel treatment of humans and inability to live as he pleases(“Once my fancy was soothed with dreams of virtue, of fame, and of enjoyment. Once I falsely hoped to meet with beings who...would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding” Shelley 211), turns to more nefarious goals. He lived to deprive Victor of all that he yearned for and with Victor’s death he realizes the useless futility of those actions. Frankenstein’s death forces the monster to realize the emptiness in his own life by building a facade, using vengeance to conceal his own problems. Similar to what I was saying earlier, after Victor’s passing he disposes of his innocent delusions of the kindness of humanity and resigns himself to his lot in life. He comes to terms with the fact that he is unwanted and will never belong, in any sense of the word, and goes off to kill himself. I find this a sad ending to a remarkably noble creature, despite his mistakes and foibles.

We spend our partitioned lives, and a brevity of them, in AP Literature finding new ideas to talk about and expand upon. We look into the depths and far-reaching ends of these characters and analyze our different themes till there is no more to discuss about.

But what does that mean, in terms of our themes, for us?

As loss of innocence was my group's assigned theme, we strove to find the various places where our characters lost their naiveté or innocence. We established points where the monster lost its innocence in various places like the point of his creation, when he was shunned by an innocent family, and when he was shot for trying to save a drowning woman's life. We talked about Victor's innocence and how he loses it at the deaths of everyone in his life as well as his decision to abort his second.

But what about us? Where do we as readers lose our innocence?

A loss of innocence, by the common agreement in our fishbowls and online discussions, is when a character loses his or her naiveté. For example, a parent buys a child a pet goldfish and the child believes he and the fish will live happily ever after forever. He loses his innocence when the fish passes away and he realizes that both happiness and life have a definite end sometimes. Regardless, this is just a life lesson and he will pick up his life soon after, but the point is that he went through that hardship and it may stand to define him as a person.

Now that we've established that, where do we truly lose our innocence when we read the novel?

There are various small points where us readers lose our innocence and then there is one big point where we lose it as well. When Victor mocks his creation after it is created, we discussed about how we felt bad and didn't think it was right. But that all changed as soon as the monster kills an innocent human life. We lose innocence at the mere idea of the monster being a tabula rasa because it went against a fundamental human ideal, the preservation of life. When we feel bad for the monster's stories, yet mock it for blackmailing Victor, we go against our word and lose our innocence of opinion. These are all very minute instances of where us readers lose our innocence, but even this is a stretch.

The main point where we readers lose our innocence is when we find the monster, near the end of the book, weeping beside Victor's dead body. It's primary mission was to blackmail, threaten, and kill victor, but it weeps at the death of its enemy? We lose our innocence the most here simply because we realize the monster is capable of feeling empathy for the death of its creator. Countless time it murdered people and it was not apparent to us whether or not the monster felt, but our emotions are crossed and we lose our innocence of judging. We were wrong about the monster caring for its creator regardless of their relationship, and it turned out to be very different from what we actually expected.

We judged a book by its very strange and limited cover.

--

Special K

Bonjour! It is Tuesday again. It’s also spring break and while I could be napping and lazing about, the only thing on my mind was Frankenstein. I know, I know, a teenage girl such as myself should have more things on my mind other than literary classics, but well, whatever. In class on Thursday, in the fishbowl, there were a lot of great commentary about loss of innocence in the novel as well as other things. However, I wanted to elaborate on something that was brought up that I found interesting that was said in class.

There was a lot of talk about how nature has a prominent role in the novel. Whether nature was replacing a mother figure for the monster, or showing characteristics of the primary characters in the novel, it got me think about psychology. More specifically the topic of the nature versus nurture theme, and yes, I know that the “nature” referred to in this debate is alluding to genetics rather than “the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations” (cough, thanks google, cough). But still, it got me thinking. In a different discussion this debate was also brought up, but in the fishbowl on Thursday, it seemed funny to me that one of the main topics of discussion was nature when Frankenstein’s monster seems to leans more toward the nurture side of the debate. The monster has no genetics or anything of the sort to gain any knowledge from, so of course he had to learn purely through his environment rather than relying on his non-existent biological ties. The monster was very much a tabula rasa; he had absolutely nothing with which he could pull any information from. So he had to survive by learning how to behave and act through a random family that he stalked for a year.

This wasn’t really an in depth analysis of anything it was just something interesting that was on my mind. Anyways I’ll see y’all next Tuesday!

-Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen

So we have reached the end of the book, and we have also reached the end of both Victor's and the monster's innocence. Ironically, both characters lose their innocence in very similar processes and have their loss of innocence thrust upon them rather than losing it through their own realizations and actions.

With the monster, we see his complete loss of innocence arrive in chapter 20 through the discovery that Victor has destroyed the female monster he was in the process of creating. This realization forced the monster to understand that he has no chance left to find acceptance anywhere. He will eternally be an outcast and an outsider in search of love but never destined to find it. In my previous blog post, I discussed how the monster clung to his shreds of innocence through this hope of acceptance, however, it has now been extinguished and he truly understands how alone in the world he really is. Personally, I sympathize with the monster and believe him to be the true victim of this book, being brought into existence but just as quickly abandoned by the one man who had the power to change his fate. Victor turned his back on the monster, which not only planted the first seeds of hate in the monster, but also his extreme need for love and acceprance. All of society, like Victor, views the creature as a monster, but is he really the true monster in the story? Perhaps I am slightly biased when I say this since I dislike Victor, but he arises as more of a monster than his creation does in my eyes. Whenever we hear the name Frankenstein, we always associate it with the monster in the story.  I grew up believing that Fankenstein actually was the name of the monster, but of course, reading the book taught me otherwise. However, this connection made me realize that we associate the name with the monster since it is Frankenstein who is the true monster of the story. He created life, similarly to how a woman gives birth to a child, but abandoned him while expecting everything to work out. Throughout the novel, he blames the monster for almost everything, but in cases such as with Justine and William, Victor refuses to take and part of the blame for being the one who created this "awful" monster.

Victor loses his innocence with the death of Elizabeth and his father in chapter 23, where he undergoes a realization that, like the monster, he is ultimately alone and has no one left who cares about him. This sadness is almost instantly transformed into rage toward the monster, therefore sparking the beginning of his relentless desire to kill him. The loss of innocence is a very tragic event. It is sad to no longer have those once child like views that are so genuine and so innocent that you can't help but be nostalgic about when you think of them. With innocence, we can the see the pureness in the world, in every action, we can see a good intention. When stripped of this innocence very suddenly and prematurely like the monster, it is very difficult to resist feelings of hatred and resentment, and it is easier to allow them to consume you. Although the book has ended and so have the stories of Victor Frankenstein and his monster, we must remember that monstrosity is acquired, not born with, and that innocence can be found in us all.

-Number Six

After Henry’s death Victor is near inconsolable and is thought to be mad by the majority of people who interact with him, principally his father. He rants and raves, “‘I am not mad...the sun and the heavens, who have viewed my operations, can bear witness of my truth. I am the assassin of those most innocent victims; they died by my machinations,’ (Shelley 176) blaming himself for everything, rightly so in my opinion, and falls into a deep depression. However, he’s brought out of this slump by, yet again, Elizabeth who seems to be his proverbial light left on the porch. This assertion is only enforced later in the novel, “the threat appeared more as a delusion, not to be regarded as worthy to disturb my peace, while the happiness I hoped for in my marriage wore a greater appearance of certainty,” (Shelley 182) when Victor almost forgets about the monster entirely because of his upcoming nuptials. She represents innocence not only physically, at least stereotypically, but also mentally. I say this because of her overall caring personality and tendency to be understanding and, to a small extent, naive. And, in my mind, she represents Frankenstein’s innocence to a degree also. As children they meet and grow together, knowing they’re meant to marry. Simple, unchanging optimism, the bygones of a time past, remnants of childhood, whatever you want to call it.

What I also want to touch on is the idea that Elizabeth also represents Victor’s innocence and its slow degradation. In chapters past we see that many times Elizabeth and Victor’s moods coincide and mirror one another. This is seen again in Chapter twenty two with Frankenstein’s homecoming. “She was thinner and had lost much of that heavenly vivacity that had before charmed me” (Shelley 180) we see how, with Victor’s Innocence, Elizabeth has suffered. Then, following that train of thought, it would be logical to say that Elizabeth’s death would be the penultimate portrayal of the final loss of Victor’s innocence. After that point he has nothing and no one, his one goal: revenge. And so with that as his goal he goes on a fruitless quest and ends up meeting Walton, worn out, disillusioned, and having given up on life.

Whelp, that's all for me, I really just did this since we barely give Elizabeth any attention.

- Harry F'n Potter

"I've been feeling under pressure... I've been feeling under pressure..." - Logic

What's the difference between our struggles and those of our parents? We often hear stories about how our ancestors fled great wars, apartheids, and unfavorable conditions to come to the United States, where we now reside. The generic, "Do you know why we came to this country? To give you a better future." In the bay area, a place filled with heavy diversity and international aquaintence, we are always pressured by those around us, especially our parents, to drive to succeed in life. We've all had those awkward moments when we don't quite get along with our parents, but we find ways to deal with them peacefully.

See not all that parents are that understanding, and I'm sure many of you readers out there can relate. The subjectivity of our feelings towards certain issues depends upon what we are influenced by while growing up. Unlike how the monster is pressured in a very negative environment right from creation, we are often loved and nurtured by our guardians in any ways they can afford. We are brought up in a great society full of inovation and creativity, but do our conclusions come out the same? Victor's hatred towards his being, his evident "son," eventually pressured the monster into rebelling, hating Victor, and eventually blackmailing him through the death of his loved ones. Now while that idea may be a bit extreme, it may apply to us in certain ways.

While the monster had an accelerated life, we grew up nurtured by our environment in Evergreen. We eventually learned more about the world and ourselves, and then had times of disagreements with our parents, often regarded by medical experts as a time of "puberty." The monster's puberty can be seen as his time of revolt and understanding. He finally accepts what others think about him, but seeks for love and compassion for others to accept him for who he is. This dilemma is seen variously throughout the book when the monster searches for his purpose in life, but is bricked by the limitations given to him by society and his creator.

Now we may not always get along with our parents, and often times we fundamentally disagree upon ideals in the roles of education. Our parents often times value our education as a meter for our future success, which can be a valid stance in some cases, but equally unfair and burdensome upon ourselves. In a world where grades mean life or death and the difference between an "A" and a "B" can determine our grounding for the day, we as students at EV are held to a very high standard of expectations by our parents. I even surveyed 10 households in my neighborhood near evergreen elementary, and of the 20 parents i asked, 18 of them said that they would be extremely dissapointed if their child came home with an "F" on a big test or assignment. And that conclusion is perfectly reasonable, but then again we have to dig deeper into the circumstances of the grades themselves.

We are discouraged by society to be happy when we get a "D" on a calculus test, when we are not even given the necessary time or teaching to succeed in that concept.

We are discouraged by society to be happy when we get second place in a dance competition because we didn't get first.

We are discouraged by society to continue at the first glimpse of failure because we do not think we are capable of doing or succeeding at something.

Whoever helped set this notion into our society was really trying to mess us up. If we believe in ourselves like this, then how are we any better than the monster? The monster's internal conflict to find it's identity and capabilities/desires and its external conflict against the opinions of the world set him up to do amoral things. He took the lives of people and blackmailed his creator, all because he wasn't given the opportunity to find his true self. While Victor is on his tour he often contemplates the ideas of failure, stress, and death, which attribute a very negative tone to the tone of the book. The mood makes us question our own actions and whether or not they may impact others in the depth of Victor's problems. We are sucked into this problem, again this catch 22 of: What can we do to succeed?

I am a firm believer in the idea that we create our own paths. I know you may think it's hopeless. I know you may think it's the end of the world right now. I know you may think that a "C" or "D" in a class can't be improved or that you have no path to travel down without failure.

Just know that in the end you will find a way. Through all the darkness, all the sadness, and all the pain in your life right now, we will always be by your side the next day. We will always support you no matter the backlash. We will always help you find a way, and you will.

We have yet to see how Victor find's his way, but we're sure as hell not going to put the novel down now. We're just a little under pressure.

--

Special K

P.S.

On a more analytical side, I left this part out of the main body because I didn't want to deter any readers that would get bored, Victor's intense struggle and his idea of feeling under pressure stems from his struggles in chapter 17. As the monster shares it's cryptic fascination of love and its drive to be loved, Victor is stuck again between a catch 22. He must either create another life and possibly let loose another maniacal machine of mayhem and destruction or let his entire family die under the wrath of his wicked creation. Victor's drive to solve the monster's problem is lead by the monster's critical blackmail approach that allows it to strategically blackmail Frankenstein for his own personal good. This reallt exemplifies the true hidden intellect that the monster has and attains over his short lifespan. It comes to the realization that it will never be accepted until it is first truly loves. Again much like us, support in many different forms drives us to succeed and be creative as a whole. Without that small outreach for us to connect with and depend on, our lives lose a lot of meaning and we sometimes lose a motivation/drive to succeed or do anything at all.

As in our fishbowls. we often discussed the very important factor of time. "When did he go to college, When did he die, When did he create the monster." These events all have factual evidence and can be pinpointed to a certain location, but when does the monster truly lose his innocence? We've had entire fishbowl discussions about the main point where the monster loses its innocence, and for that matter many points where it loses its innocence. That's where we get to the real discourse about this topic; when does the monster first lose its innocence and which loss is the most important? Let's analyze these 2 questions separately.

First off, when does the monster first lose its innocence?

I believe this pivotal moment in the monster's life is when he is first created. As victor flees from the sight of his creation and comes back, he continues to call the monster ugly, which definitely impacted the monster as it was one of its first interactions with the world. Victor can be quoted,

"I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then, but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived" (Shelley pg43).

This instance of pure hatred and pity sparked a sadness within the monster that can be traced as the first official loss of the monster's innocence, right after its creation. Regardless of this first instant, the monster still has hope that others will not be like Victor and will eventually accept him for who he is. Or will they?

Now let's address the second part of our question at hand; Which loss of innocence is the most important?

Of all the times where we consider it a loss of innocence, from the time the monster first killed to when he was shot for trying to save a drowning girl, I came down to 1 main point that can be highly debated about its importance. As the monster adjusts his way of living and learns from an innocent family in a cottage, he uses a literal understanding of "Lost Paradise" as hope for his acceptance. He understands the delicacies of life and learns from the behaviors of the children and the blind man. As he is accepted by the blind man on the level of his wit, everything changes when the children face him. These innocent creatures the monster was studying suddenly screamed and ran for their lives. And this was all in terms of sheer pain and fear from the ugliness of our monster. 

The fact that the monster spent all that time trying to learn and integrate himself into society serves to explain the depth of his heartbreak when he is rejected. When the simple blind man speaks to the monster, he is not in any form of fear and accepts the intellect of the monster, but when the girls see his disfigured figure, they are extremely frightened. It's a fear that eventually drives the monster to make very rash decisions in terms of his surroundings. 

Do you guys think there's a more important loss of innocence? If so just comment or message me on facebook, twitter, snapchat, or instagram!

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Special K