READING MATERIALS MEETING OUR MONSTERS-. Essential Question: What do monsters teach us about human nature? Frankenstein — Mary Shelly CONTEXT This is from the moment in Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, where Dr. Frankenstein creates his monster. Remember, “Frankenstein” is actually the scientist, not the monster (as Hollywood portrays it). AS YOU'RE READING underline the key words or phrases that help you answer what this text reveals about human nature. In the margin, explain why or how. Chapter 5 It was on a dreary night of November that | beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, | collected the instruments of life around me, that | might infuse a spark ‘of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet, It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half- extinguished light, | saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. How can | describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavored to form? His limbs were in proportion, and i had selected his features as beautiful, Beautifull Great Got! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; this hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriance's only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost the same color as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion and straight black lips. The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature. | had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body, For this | had deprived myself of rest and health. | had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being | had created, | rushed out of the room and continued a long time traversing my bedchamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep, Shelly, Mary. Frankenstein. New York, NY: Signet, 2000. Print.“Monsters & the Tyranny of Normality: How Do Biologists Interpret Anomalous Forms?” in The American Biology Teacher -- Douglas Allchin CONTEXT Thi from an article that addresses how biologists define monstrosity. AS YOU'RE READING underline the key words or phrases that help you answer what this text reveals about human nature. In the margin, explain why or how. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, monsters were wonders (Allchin, 2007b). Anomalous forms - like conjoined twins, hermaphrodites, hydrocephalic babies, or the extraordinarily hairy Petrus Gonsalus and his equally hairy children - amazed people. They evoked a spirit of inquiry that helped fuel the emergence of modern science. Today, however, such bodies tend to strike us as freakish or grotesque - possibly even “against nature.” How did our cultural perspective, and with it, our values and. emotional responses change so radically? With feith in lawlike regularities, philosophical anatomy, teratology and statistics, monsters changed in the 1800s from anomalous wonders to pathological errors. Consider, for example, the case of Joseph Merrick also known as “the Elephant Man,” in mid-century. Merrick exhibited the Proteus syndrome (genetically based excessive bone growth). His head was enormous and bulbous, his right arm and left leg inflated with pendulous folded tissue (even while his left arm seemed utterly familiar). His body was strikingly asymmetrical, resulting in uneven movements. Eventually, Merrick reached the care of physician Frederick Treves and was welcomed in London's elite society. But such care was deliberately protective. Treves described how earlier, “he had been lll-treated and reviled and bespattered with the mud of Disdain” (Howell & Ford, 1980, p. 189). Even under Treves care, he went hooded and cloaked in public lest he spark incident. Merrick himself never stopped dreaming of being ordinary. Merrick’s unusual form did not evoke fascination, but an alienation to be overcome. Naturalizing the “Normal” The concept of laws of nature has a powerful hold on our minds. They very language Is highly charged. In human society, laws specify what we ought to do. They ensure social order. We tend to interpret laws ‘of nature in the same way, as the guarantors of natural order, profiling how nature should act. Once established, descriptive laws take on a prescriptive character. The laws of “normal” development easily become standards for how organisms ought” to grow. The normal becomes naturalized, or apparently constitutive of nature's order (Allchin, 2007a). At the same time, the abnormal comes to reflect undesirable disorder or chaos. Facts thereby become imperceptibly—but inappropriately—imbued with values. The irony of monsters is that while they are plainly products of nature, they are often viewed as “unnatural” because they seem to “violate” its “laws.” The term “monstrous” now implies impropriety, not merely unusualness. The effect of naturalizing the “normal is not unlike a paradox of democracy. When one honors exclusively the wishes of the majority, the minority can be wholly disenfranchised. Such “tyranny of the majority” eclipses the political question of how to address dissent. In a similar way, undue focus ‘on the laws of nature, or the normal can eclipse understanding of exceptions or phenomena not fully described by the laws. One may call it, by comparison, “the tyranny of normality.” Scientifically, it means our interpretations of nature may be skewed or incomplete. Culturally, it means monsters—according to the “natural” categories established by “science"—are shunned (or pitied) as abnormal, not welcomed or celebrated as unique. Allchin, Douglas. “Monsters & the Tyranny of Normality: How do biologists interpret anomalous forms?” The American Biology Teacher 70.2 (2008): 117-119. PrintNight — Elie Wiesel CONTEXT This passage comes from Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night. Wiesel was a concentration camp survivor in WWII, An experience he has after his release triggers memories from his past. ‘AS YOU’RE READING underline the key words or phrases that help you answer what this text reveals about human nature. In the margin, explain why or how. ‘Some years later, | watched the same kind of scene at Aden. The passengers on our boat were amusing themselves by throwing coins to the “natives,” who were diving in to get them. An attractive, aristocratic Parisienne was deriving special pleasure from the game. | suddenly noticed that two children were engaged in a death struggle, trying to strangle each other. | tured to the lady. “Please,” | begged, “don't throw any more money in! “Why not?" she said. “I like to give charity... In the wagon where the bread had fallen, a real battle had broken out. Men threw themselves on top of each other, stamping on each other, tearing at each other, biting each other. Wild beasts of prey, with animal hatred in their eyes; an extraordinary vitality had seized them, sharpening their teeth and nails. ‘A crowd of workmen and curious spectators had collected along the train. They had probably never seen a train with such cargo, Soon, nearly everywhere, pieces of bread were being dropped into the wagons. The audience stared at these skeletons of men, fighting one another to the death for a mouthful. A piece fell into our wagon, | decided that | would not move. Anyway, | knew that | would never have the strength. to fight with a dozen savage men! Not far away | noticed an old man dragging himself along on all fours. He was trying to disengage himself from the struggle. He held one hand to his heart. | thought at first he received a blow to the chest. Then | understood; He had a bit of bread under his shirt. With remarkable speed he drew it ‘out and put it to his mouth. His eyes gleamed; a smile, like a grimace, lit up his dead face. And was immediately extinguished, A shadow just loomed up near him. The shadow threw itself upon him. Felled to the ground, stunned. with blows, the old man cried: A piece fell into our wagon, | decided that | would not move. Anyway, | knew that | would never have the strength to fight with a dozen savage men! Not far away I noticed an old man dragging himself along on all fours. He was trying to disengage himself from the struggle. He held one hand to his heart. | thought at first he received a blow to the chest. Then | understood; He had a bit of bread under his shirt. With remarkable speed he drew it ‘out and put it to his mouth. His eyes gleaned; a smile, like a grimace, lit up his dead face. And was immediately extinguished, A shadow just loomed up near him. The shadow threw itself upon him. Felled to the ground, stunned with blows, the old man cried: “Meir, Meir, my boy! Don't you recognize me? I'm your father... you're hurting me ...you'te killing your father! I've got some bread..for you too...for your too...” He collapsed. His fist was still clenched around a small piece. He tried to carry it to his mouth. But the other one threw himself upon him and snatched it. The old man again whispered something, let out a rattle, and died amid the general indifference. His son searched him, took the bread, and began to devour it. He was not able to get very far. Two men had seen and hurled themselves upon him. Others joined in. When they withdrew, next to me were two corpses, side by side, the father and the son. | was fifteen years old. Wiesel, Elie. Night. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000. Print.GROUP A Dracula by Bram Stoker - Beginning of Chapter 3 Jonathan Harker's Journal Continued When | found that | was a prisoner a sort of wild feeling came over me. | rushed up and down the stairs, trying every door and peering out of every window | could find, but after a little the conviction of my helplessness overpowered all other feelings. When | look back after a few hours | think | must have been mad for the time, for | behaved much as a rat does in a trap. When, however, the conviction had come to me that I was helpless | sat down quietly, as quietly as | have ever done anything in my life, and began to think over what was best to be done. | am thinking still, and as yet have come to no definite conclusion. Of one thing only am I certain. That it is no use making my ideas known to the Count. He knows well that | am imprisoned, and as he has done it himself, and has doubtless his own motives for it, he would only deceive me if | trusted him fully with the facts. So far as | can see, my only plan will be to keep my knowledge and my fears to myself, and my eyes open. | am, | know, either being deceived, like a baby, by my own fears, or else | am in desperate straits, and if the latter be so, | need, and shall need, all my brains to get through. 1 had hardly come to this conclusion when | heard the great door below shut, and knew that the Count had returned. He did not come at once into the library, so | went cautiously to my own room and found him making the bed. This was odd, but only confirmed what | had all along thought, that there are no servants in the house. When later | saw him through the chink of the hinges of the door laying the table in the dining room, | was assured of it. For if he does himself all these menial offices, surely it is proof that there is no one else in the castle, it must have been the Count himself who was the driver of the coach that brought me here. This is a terrible thought, for if so, what does it mean that he could control the wolves, as he did, by only holding up his hand for silence? How was it that all the people at Bistritz and on the coach had some terrible fear for me? What meant the giving of the crucifix, of the garlic, of the wild rose, of the mountain ash?GROUP B Dracula by Bram Stoker - End of Chapter 3 Jonathan Harker’s Journal Continued | was afraid to raise my eyelids, but looked out and saw perfectly under the lashes. The girl went on her knees, and bent over me, simply gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal, till | could see in the moonlight the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth. Lower and lower went her head as the lips went below the range of my mouth and chin and seemed to fasten on my throat. Then she paused, and | could hear the churning sound of her tongue as it licked her teeth and lips, and | could feel the hot breath on my neck. Then the skin of my throat began to tingle as one's flesh does when the hand that is to tickle it approaches nearer, nearer. | could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the super sensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there. | closed my eyes in languorous ecstasy and waited, waited with beating heart. But at that instant, another sensation swept through me as quick as lightning. | was conscious of the presence of the Count, and of his being as if lapped in a storm of fury. As my eyes opened involuntarily | saw his strong hand grasp the slender neck of the fair woman and with giant's power draw it back, the blue eyes transformed with fury, the white teeth champing with rage, and the fair cheeks blazing red with passion. But the Count! Never did | imagine such wrath and fury, even to the demons of the pit. His eyes were positively blazing. The red light in them was lurid, as if the flames of hell fire blazed behind them. His face was deathly pale, and the lines of it were hard like drawn wires. The thick eyebrows that met over the nose now seemed like a heaving bar of white-hot metal. With a fierce sweep of his arm, he hurled the woman from him, and then motioned to the others, as though he were beating them back. It was the same imperious gesture that | had seen used to the wolves. In a voice which, though low and almost in a whisper seemed to cut through the air and then ring in the room he said, “How dare you touch him, any of you? How dare you cast eyes on him when | had forbidden it? Back, | tell you all! This man belongs to me! Beware how you meddle with him, or you'll have to deal with me.”Reading the Artwork of Max Ernst: The Art Story: Modern Art Story website shares the following about Ernst: “Interested in locating the origin of his own creativity, Ernst attempted to freely paint from his inner psyche and in an attempt to reach a pre-verbal state of being. Doing so unleashed his primal emotions and revealed his personal traumas, which then became the subject of his collages and paintings. This desire to paint from the sub-conscious, also known as automatic painting was central to his Surrealist works and would later influence theAbstract Expressionists. Other insight into Emst: “Rebellious, heterogeneous, full of contradiction, [my work] is unacceptable to specialists of art, culture, morality. But it does have the ability to enchant my accomplices: poets, pataphysicians and a few illiterates. Thus Max Ernst (tongue poked its usual quarter-lenath into one rubicund cheek) summed up his own career at the age of 68. “Accomplices” was the key word, for it is hard to look at Max Ernst without feeling a pact between his secret language and one’s own fantasies. The carnivorous or petrified landscapes, the enchanted pencil forests, the enigmatic rooms in which sinister things happen - these constitute a world on the other side of the mirror, access to which depends on an involuntary conspiracy with the artist” (Hughes). Hughes, Robert. "Art: Max Ernst: The Compleat Experimenter." Time 12 Apr. 1976: Print. "Max Emst: Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works." The Art Story. Web. 15 Sept. 2015. Some questions to help you unpack the paintings: What does the figure(s) remind you of? What mood does the painting evoke? What is the impact of the color? What significance might the background or other objects in the painting play in the overall painting?9/15/20159/15/2015 hitp:/fhammerucla.e 13/09/mar-erns—_—.lLUmUmUmC~—~—~OC eRe =O0608 1,663,718% aes Imagine you're a shipwrecked sailor adrift in the enormous Playlists to watch Browse all