Yesterday in the Gothic class, we started our unit on Frankenstein. I gave a little background information on the period, and then we began talking about the idea of monstrosity and how it relates to creation. As a writer, I'm always particularly interested in Mary Shelley's reference to her book as her own "hideous progeny," as well as the tale that the first draft of Frankenstein was composed in a mere weekend. One of the prison students surprised me, though, with his take on not only the novel, but the whole concept of "the monsters we create." He argued that the media creates monsters every day by vilifying criminals and by giving criminal attributes to whoever opposes societal norms.Another student picked up on this and mentioned the oil spill in the Gulf, and how "monster" language was being used both by BP and the government, and still another mentioned terrorism and 9/11. Then a fourth student brought us back to the text and pointed out that Victor Frankenstein's "real problem" was not so much his creation of the monster, but his utter avoidance of it once he did create it. And then he looked at me with a desperate, haunted expression, and said, "Dr. Paterson, don't you think we're like Frankenstein's monster? Society creates us, decides to punish us, but then locks us away and never looks at us again. They just don't want to think of us."
As usual, I walked out of those gates yesterday having learned so much more than I taught.
Comments
What a complex experience it must be, sharing such a text with such an audience.
But yes, it's a very complex experience, and the same thought passed through my mind when the man said that. Sometimes I think it must be easier for them to see themselves only as society's creations, though, than to take the responsibility and drown in their own guilt.
I think your student has a point. Every war, every genocide, and way too many ugly political campaigns involve the dehumanization of "the enemy." Calling opponents monsters is just an extension of that tendency.
He's right, too, about people in the free world wanted to look away from "the prisoner problem." But I also get Mylene's point about personal responsibility.
It's an incredibly complex problem, and it's good that literature gives a venue to explore our feelings with words.
Good work.
Oh, and you want to know something even more inane than the drugs? I've had some guys in there for having three DUIs. Now I agree that people driving drunk should be punished, but I'm just not sure a lengthy jail sentence is the best way to go, even if they ended up killing someone. As someone whose father was almost killed by a drunk driver (he survived with a broken hip and had to spend several weeks with his leg in traction), I have mixed feelings on that issue.
I also have a lot of complex feelings about criminology and the mentally ill, some of which are coming out through my novel. So many felons have mental illnesses that were undiagnosed at the time of their crimes and continue to go un or undermedicated in prison. I've always thought in those cases that our justice system needed something besides guilty or not guilty due to . . . Something that recognizes the person's responsibility but also recognizes their pathologically limited judgment.
Sigh. There's just so much I could say.