Purpose:
The idea behind this site was initially to provide a hypertext look at a section of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The concept began as having one main page with various links that would mostly serve as footnotes to parts of the text. As I began looking for an appropriate body of text, however, another idea struck me. It occurred to me that throughout my own reading of the text, I became distracted by the eloquent descriptions that Mary Shelley used. I found that I was either disgusted by the horror of the monstrosity that Victor Frankenstein had created, or I felt sympathy and admiration for the fledgling being. In both cases I found that I neglected the corresponding counterpart. In other words, when I observed that part of the Creation for which I had sympathy, I forgot the utter horror of his countenance, and vice versa.
Based on this observation, I selected a piece of text that could be viewed in either light – the first dialogue between the Creation and Frankenstein. I wanted to create a site that would illustrate the effect mentioned above, as well as allow for other applications. Namely, I wanted the site to force a user to be exposed to both sides of the Creation in such a way that they could not help but observe and be aware of both sides at the same time. This allows a user to choose their experience – and therefore bias – before the final text. When a user reaches the final text, however, their experience will change based on what they previously viewed.
Eventually, this new development ties in with the original purpose, in that the final page of text is a hypertext form of the first dialogue between Frankenstein and his Creation. This hypertext was created with the purpose of relating my personal thoughts and experience of reading this passage. Each link defines some term that is used, explains some dependent part of the story, or facilitates comprehension by offering some insight. Each link is optional, and the entirety of the dialogue can be read and understood without the additional information provided by the links.
In a nutshell, the purpose of this project is to present Frankenstein’s Creation both as an innocent being, and also as a hideous monster.
For:
Maggie Sloan's English 10LCI class. 12.9.06
This is an educational website. All borrowed images and other media will be used for a brief period only.
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