As I mentioned earlier today, this class has literally opened a can of worms in my brain. I feel compelled to re-examine all the works we have already read and delve deeper and deeper into the texts in order to find myself in them--where do I exist within the extremes of the Romantic state of mind and what can I take from their understanding of sorrow and sublime, life and death, transcendence and an empty existence. Is my vision so blurred from the chaos of contemporary life that I am missing what is always already there? That on a base level I am a living, breathing creature that lives and will die and what I choose to see in between sets forth the paradox of a cyclical existence that is at the same time grand, meaningful, powerful, arbitrary, and insignificant.

I guess reading Frankenstein brought these questions to the foreground focusing or the cyclical aspect of our human condition. Not only is the novel structured so that it begins and ends at the same time, but the characters within the text are constantly revolving their position as man or monster. Victor, the monster and Walton each play their part in the destruction and animation of life solidifying their function as doubles throughout the story and compounding the lurking theme of cyclicality in the text. The three characters exist as extensions of one another, with the monster and Victor especially switching roles as creator and destroyer. The first description given to us of Victor greatly resembles one we would imagine of the monster, suggesting that the seemingly polar extremes of man and monster are actually interconnected:

"I never saw a more interesting creature: his eyes have generally an expression of wildness, and even madness; but there are moments when, if anyone performs an act of kindness towards him, or does him any the most trifling service, his whole countenance is lighted up, as it were, with a beam of benevolence and sweetness that I never saw equalled. But he is generally melancholy and despairing; and sometimes he gnashes his teeth, as if impatient of the weight of woes that oppresses him."

Walton reanimates Victor so Victor may tell his story of giving life to the monster. As Frankenstein recounts his tale, he says, "To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death." Here the link is made that in order to see the truth of one thing, you must look at what you assume to be its complete opposite only to discover that they are intrinsically connected. As the natural decay of the human form is manifested in the worms eating a rotting corpse, death and life are seen as a cohesive force.

I think that this is the contradiction underlying all of the Romantic works that we have looked at this semester, this idea of conflating contradictions in order to achieve a more accurate perspective of life. Surpassing just the themes of life and death and moving to simple action and emotion. There is always a negative that accompanies a positive in order to maintain balance in the force (sorry about the star wars reference, but that just emphasizes the point that Romanticism is definitely NOT dead!!). We are all frankensteins and monsters at different times in our lives and experience both pleasures and pains stronger than we ever thought possible. But my point is, I guess, very coarsely worded, is that reading these texts helped me to understand myself more re-evaluate my position in a big, messy, beautiful, chaotic, fucked up world.