Journal Entry for First Move

For my first move, I wanted William to interact with Victor. As William is unfortunately dead, I decided that introducing an additional text in the form of a letter was my best option. Based on my interpretation of the characters of William and Victor, I see the parallels between the two as significant to the understanding of both William and Victor. I believe that while they do not have a direct relationship in the text, they work as foils to expose the similarities and differences between the two. Since Victor did not describe his interactions with his youngest brother to Walton, I decided to introduce a situation in which William regards Victor.

While there are no explicit quotes describing William as caring, one can assume, based on the caring nature of the people around him, that William would be concerned for his brother. William has grown up surrounded with a loving family whom has been very close to each other. They all show concern for one another so it would be natural to assume that William has also acquired this trait. Even Williams’s playmate and brother Ernest shows concern that William surly inherited as Ernest expressed that, “I am afraid, tears instead of smiles will be your welcome. Our father looks so sorrowful: this dreadful event seems to have revived in his mind his grief on the death of Mamma. Poor Elizabeth also is quite inconsolable” (55). Based on this interpretation, I decided to make Williams letter very concerning for his brother.

As I mentioned in my last journal, I found William and Victor to be foil characters to one another. I tried to keep that idea present in my first move. At this time, Victor is very deeply involved with his work and closes out most of the world as mentioned in the last journal entry. He does not socialize or go outside much and lets his health decline. William on the other hand, has many friends and loves to be outside. I touched upon this as William told his story about the picnic outside with his family while Victor was too consumed with his studies to write to his family.

I felt that William interacting with Victor was very important as it did not happen in the novel. I believe that Williams’s characteristics bring out opposing ones within Victor and I feel that if the audience saw more of an interaction between the two, we could have seen even more into Victor’s character.

I would also like to say that part of this character that I struggle with is Williams’s age. I feel that it is difficult to write in character if my character is 8 years old. I feel that when writing my moves, I need to limit my language so that it works better with my character however, I do not want it to appear that I am not putting much work in to my moves. I feel that the journal responses better clarify my actions as I am not limited to the character.