Journal Entry for Monsters (Revisionary)

I decided that the only fitting way to conclude my exploration of Felix’s character was to interact more closely with the passage in which he discovers the creature, which is certainly one of the most pivotal moments in the story. Based on my expanded characterization of Felix as a person who is experiencing extreme inner turmoil, this excerpt represents the climax of his experiences in the book, and the moment when the degree of his instability is revealed to the other characters.

Although my interpretation actually follows the text fairly closely, I modified the moment when Safie “rushed out of the cottage” (103) because Sam (Safie, Game 1) and I have agreed that the many parallels between Safie and the creature could easily elicit a very different reaction to this scene. I believe this, combined with my decision to explain Felix’s actions through his repressed emotions, is a crucial and very plausible difference between the explicit content of Frankenstein and how a reader might understand the work if they were to pay closer attention to the minor characters. Though the creature views the De Lacey family as ideal people, it is important to realize he is unable to draw any accurate comparisons since they are the first humans he comes in contact with. He probably has a tendency to exaggerate their positive traits, and I tried to present a different narration by countering this with my exaggeration of Felix’s negative ones.

I used a few phrases taken directly from the creature’s point of view such as ” my heart sunk within me as with bitter sickness” (103) in my revision from Felix’s perspective. I chose to do this to illustrate the similarities between the two characters; to show that the creature is more like Felix than he realizes or would like to admit. This relates to the questions such as “What does it mean to be human?” and “Is the creature a monster?” that we have been discussing in class, since it calls the reader to question who the true “monsters” are in Frankenstein.

I also wanted to create a sense of irony by having Felix’s revulsion intensify when he hears the creature speak, since it was through Felix’s indirect instruction that the creature learns French. This also seemed like another opportunity to embellish the different “connections” between these two characters and make them more visible to the reader.