Frankenstein Character Sketch

Victor Frankenstein starts off as a young sensitive and innocent boy, but over the course of the book he makes some huge changes. He goes from this acquitted boy to a mad scientist, whose goal is to create life from dead body parts that he has dug out of the ground. Only someone with a sick mind could imagine doing something such as this. Frankenstein has changed completely. He was completely committed to this project of his, so committed that he dropped reality. Frankenstein was a loner, he spent every waking minute on his new obsession. There was something wrong with Frankenstein, perhaps it was because he had such a perfect childhood and he finally snapped. He was so fascinated with the 'secret of life' and when he finally discovered it; he was not satisfied. In fact, Victor Frankenstein was ashamed and almost scared of what he has brought to life. It was uncontrollable. He was embarrassed and too proud to to admit that he was the creator of this monster. Throughout the story you read about the remorse and shame that Frankenstein feels, he no longer knows who he has become. He is so very different from the little boy he use to be; and that is scary for him to think about. The monster kills everyone who Frankenstein loves and that makes him realize that if it weren't for him, everyone that mattered would still be alive.

FRANKENSTEIN - Questions

1. Briefly summarize what we learn about Victor’s family and background. Remember, we are trying to see how things from his childhood would affect him to build the man he becomes.

In the first two chapters of Frankenstein we learn about Victor's background. His childhood friend, Elizabeth Lavenza, who came into his family because her mother passed away. His father was very successful and he was always 'compared' to Elizabeth since she was so perfect and beautiful in every way. Despite all the attention Elizabeth got, Victor Frankenstein still had a wonderful childhood life, which foreshadows him going down hill and becoming mad.

2. We see some immediate evidence of this old concept that people ARE their looks, or rather, that their looks are their personalities. Look for this in these chapters and evaluate.
You can easily see that Victor IS his look, he is described to look a little bit "insane" which matches his personality throughout the story. On the inside, he is the real monster. Victor's cousin, Elizabeth, is beautiful and always getting attention which makes Frankenstein to crazy.


3. Compare the personalities and essential nature of each of the three young friends - Victor, Henri Clerval and Elizabeth. A chart would be handy for this.
**get from evernote**


4. Do some research and give me a brief outline of the three thinkers whom Victor studied in his youth: Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus.
Cornelius Agrippa: Best known for his books, Born in 1486.
Paracelsus: Born in 1493, known for his tract on medicine and gave Zinc it's name.
Albertus Magnus: a German Dominican friar and a bishop, who achieved fame for his comprehensive knowledge of and advocacy for the peaceful coexistence of science and religion.

5. Describe Victor’s interest in these thinkers and consider why they appealed to him.
Victor was interested in these thinkers because they all had power, and Frankenstein is power-hungry. Also, the demonstration of electricity got him interested.

6. Describe and evaluate the moment of epiphany he had after the lightning storm in Belrive and explain how it changed his thinking.
The lightening gives him the idea that the energy will be strong enough to bring his monster to life.

Lady Macbeth Character Sketch

Lady Macbeth is a very big part in Shakespeare 1604-1606 play; Macbeth. At the beginning of the play she comes off as a nice young lady who is married to the king's number one knight, Macbeth. Judging by the time period you would first think that Lady Macbeth would be a weak girl who got pushed around by her big husband. As it turns out Lady Macbeth is the powerful one. She is capable of controlling Macbeth. The way that the play is written you can clearly follow her thoughts and actions, and you learn that she has a very sick and twisted mind. At the beginning of the story you never would have thought that Lady Macbeth is the mastermind behind killing the king, Duncan. She will do anything to get what she wants.She really believes the witches prediction about Macbeth becoming king and almost promises to herself that when the king comes to visit, he will not leave the castle alive. She makes sure that she gets rid of all obstacles that may prevent her evil plan by persuading Macbeth into killing the king and framing others so that Lady Macbeth and Macbeth look innocent. They decided to act as though they are just as shocked as everybody else and pretend to be deeply hurt.

As it turns out Lady Macbeth does have a soft spot because she does feel guilt and she seems doubtful in her plans the minute the deed has been done. She was just so distracted by the "beautiful" thought of becoming queen and receiving all the privileges of ruling the kingdom that when the king was killed she realized that there was no going back, all these thought out plans were now put to action and there was no way that they could undo the murder. Lady Macbeth has a lot of courage to be able to do something so evil, but the fact that she is doing it all for herself makes her seem like less of a person. Although she feels the same guilt and disgust as any normal person may feel, there is still many more parts throughout the play where Lady Macbeth proves herself to be wicked.