留学生Essay写作—玛丽·雪莱《科学怪人》中怪物的声音
http:/www.hotessay.cn 留学生论文专业定制代写网站留学生Essay写作玛丽·雪莱科学怪人中怪物的声音From the novel Mary Shelleys Frankenstein(1818)edition Chris Baldick argues that“themonstersmost convincingly human characteristic is of course his power of speech.”Explore the significance of themonstersvoice in Mary Shelleys novel.Few texts have pervaded the cultural consciousness to take on the afterlife of a haunting myth,as with Mary Shelleys Frankenstein(1818).To a twenty-first century reader,the image ofFrankenstein,often wrongly identified as the creature rather than creator,has become conflated with that of Boris Karloff,an actor in a 1931 filmic representation,which,in a true expression of creative license,was a non-speaking role.However,readers of the text will remember the creature as both intellectual and articulate in voicing his account of life through to the projection of his death.This paper seeks to explore the significance of the creatures voice,arguing that it adds a philosophical and moral dimension to the novel that would have otherwise been absent.The narrative structure of Frankenstein involves imbedded stories,where tales appear nested within other tales.Even the very epistolary nature of the text itself is fraught with tension,as the final pages reveal the letter-writing to align itself more closely with journal entries,with the poetic ending to the text neglecting either a form of signing off to the reader or a self-reflexive ending common to diary entries.This makes us question whether Waltons sister,Margaret,was indeed the intended reader of the entire narrative,which notably and often conceals the letter-writing format to allow the action of the narrative to take precedence.The narrative structure thus problematises any interpretation of language as straightforward and individually assigned and distinct.A study of Frankenstein as a gothic novel would introduce readings of cultural binaries,where the juxtaposition of normal and human with monstrous and inhuman would suggest that the creatures voice was intended to sharpen these distinctions.However,as Joyce Carol Oates argues,everyone in Frankenstein sounds alike(1983:549).All events are relayed retrospectively;conversations have often been mediated by knowledge of more recent events,and have been filtered,in the creatures case,through an expanding consciousness.Voices echo one another,in a blurred and indistinct fashion.This is largely because the epistolary format means that the only voice we hear is actually Waltons own,and even this has been mediated for a selected female readership.The monsters voice is largely heard through his petition to the one who seeks his ruin,and even the reliability of Waltons tale is mediated and arguably jeopardised by his earnest desire for friendship and his wish that Victor would fulfil that role.Noticeably,the voice of the creature appears identical in both Waltons account of Victors story and of Waltons narration of his own encounter with the creature.This is largely attributable to the fact that all events are filtered through multiple layers,including Waltons own memory.Interestingly,Oates further argues that it is naive to read Frankenstein as one would a novel,forit contains no characters,only points of views;its concerns are pointedly moral and didactic(1983:549).Baldick interprets this asdialogical openness,(1997:44)whereby the moral framework of the novel is an open debate between the perspectives of Victor,the creature and Walton.The employment of multiple narrations is an effective tool for undermining verisimilitude,as it compromises the certainty of identity and narration,proving these to be unknowable and always mediated.Thesecontrastingpoints of view do not hold fast;the monster is both sympathetic and vengeful,and his reflections are unreliably mediated by his transformation into a heightened state of consciousness.In terms of the creatures identity as a gendered being,many feminist critics have argued that the creature is constructed as a woman through his acquisition of language.The creatures passive surveillance of domestic life mirrors the female sphere,and his education is largely informed by Felixs tuition to his intended bride,Safie.As one criticism that is oft levied against Mary Shelley is that her female characters do not take an active stance but conform to traditional ideas of femininity,we have no reason to believe that Safies education is atypical or controversially aligned with the masculine sphere.Although it is outside of the remit of this essay to speculate on a gendered construction through language,it is important to note that the creatures voice is a product of an education largely intended and deemed suitable for the domestic sphere.As a foreigner,Safie is allowed access to the shared collective that is language;however,her right of access is granted on the grounds that she has a musical voice and acountenance of angelic be
