Megan Myers

World Thought 3 Midterm

14 October 2015
Question 1 Answer

Las Meninas is complex in its relationship between the viewer and the figures in the
painting. The relationships between the people and the sneak-peek into a behind the scenes of the
Spanish court make the painting a question about reality and illusion. The self is fragmented
when the viewer has so many questions about the painting and what is happening within it. The
there is an unidentifiable man on the back staircase watching the people of the court and the
maids of honor. There is also a picture of the king and queen on the wall that is argued to be a
merrier reflecting them from behind the crowd of people. There is so much illusion present of
who is who and what is going on, that it fragments the viewers idea of self and reality.
The motif of fragmented self can also be found in Shelleys Frankenstein. Victor makes a
monster that is not born with life but has life created for it. The monster represents a scared
lonely Victor who is unable to connect with people. It can be argued that as Victor runs from the
monster and then eventually pursues it, that there is no actual monster. Instead the monster is a
metaphor for a part of Victor that he has hidden from the world until now and is unable to
control. He is scared of that part of himself and tries to run, but the monster is always a part of
him and it slowly destroys him. Victor does not ever know who his true self is. He is such a
coward that he runs from who he is and what he created. Like in Las Meninas there is a deeper
story to what is happening that leaves the viewer only able to guess at what is happening. In the
painting the artiest paints himself in the painting, but for what purpose? Is he trying to be sneaky,

say he is worth being in a royal painting, or just trying to be funny? These questions force the
viewer to make decisions about what they believe is going on for themselves. They are forced to
decode the colors, the people; the illusion to create what they believe is the painters reality.
The novel and the painting force the viewer to make their own decisions about what they
think is reality and what is not. The sneak-peek of the reality behind the Spanish court lets the
viewer see a part of their lives that might normally be private, while Victor the lonely scientist
creates life. Both seem simple and straight forward until you look deeper. So many questions
arise about whom people are and what is happening that the fragmented self is nothing more than
our interpretation of who we think these people are, and what they have to say.

Megan Myers
World Thought 3 Midterm
14 October 2015
Question 2 Answer

When Walton and Victor meet in Antarctica for the first time I would use Horace Vernets
Stormy Coast Scene after a Shipwreck to describe the feel of the chapters. The painting has
rough waters suggesting a storm. Vernet uses dark greys, greens and blacks to color the sea,
rocks, and sky. It reflects a hardship, nature, and the thin line between calm and the storm. There
are three people at the bottom of the painting who could represent Walton in the blue rain jacket
trying to help Victor who is sitting on the rocks. The person already in the water, who looks like
they slipped, is not getting help from anyone and is fighting the currents alone while clinging to a
rock. These majestic painting full of action; wind, ocean water, storms, and movement is a
perfect moment captured to represent Victor and Waltons meeting and the beginning of the story.
The emotion felt in the painting is strong and captures the emotion of Victor and Walton.
Albert Bierstadts Storm in The Mountains perfectly would foreshadow the upcoming
problems after Victor brings his monster to life. The front of the painting has light that highlights
the grass to suggest warmth while the clouds in the back circle to show a storm is coming in the
future. This perfectly foreshadows the upcoming struggles Victor is about to have. The light in
the painting is the scientific discovery of creating life, with the dark storm coming ahead to
swallow up the light. There is irony that the picture is of nature which is the naturalism of the
Romanticism art period, which is the complete opposite of the monster who was created, and is
not natural.

John Ruskins Snow Storm is the perfect painting to represent the confusion of the monster
as he figures out the world around him. The painting has so much raw emotion that is portrayed
through the large brush strokes, the darker colors, and the barely visible steam-boat in the storm.
The monster is the steam-boat, and he is being surrounded by cold, confusion, the elements, and
is just trying to survive. The monster, like the steam-boat, is up against nature itself as he tried to
fit into society, learn to speak and read and make friends. Everything is up against the monster
and he still has to fight it off and continue forward. The emotions from the painting could be
matched up with the emotions the monster is feeling; rage, anger, hate, fear, panic which is all
revealed through the motion of the violent natural storm against the almost invisible steam-boat.
The Lonely Tree by Casper David Frederick is the last painting I would use for the
remainder of the story. The singled out tree would represent both Victor and the Monster. They
both feel isolated in their own worlds when behind them there where and always were people.
They might feel that they are incapable of making friends or being happy or in Victors case, even
wanting those things, but they were always available. The earthy tones are warm and calming
like when Victor finally finishes telling his story end dies. The loneliness and the isolation of
being the only tree is gone. He can rest in peace. In the painting there is a soft light coming up in
the background that could be a metaphor for the world moving on. The sun will always rise and
it gives Winston a new change at life. To not be the only tree around. Nature and the world still
continue even when you feel like the only tree. The monster couldnt handle being the only tree
and so will burn himself, but there were always other trees.

Megan Myers
World Thought 3 Midterm
14 October 2015
Question 3 Answer

Mary Shellys Frankenstein, Miltons Paradise Lost (books 4 and 9), and Eugene Delacroixs
La mort dOphelie are all Romantic works that in some form construct the ideas of femininity.
Through Shellys characters Victor Frankenstein and Miltons God, Satin, Adam and Eve, there
is a clear representation of what it is to be feminine. Victor and his monster embody the
femininity of Eve who is representing the romantic view of woman. In Delacroixs painting he
shows a new part of a famous character Ophelia from Shakespeare Hamlet. He shows her in a
more sexualized, and like Eve, fallen.
It might seem obvious at first that Victor and his monster would be synonymies with Miltons
Adam and God, because Victor created the monster like God created Adam. Unlike God
however, Victor does not love his creation. He does not take care of his monster and teach it
things. Instead he abandons it out of fear of what he has created. The monster even tells victor
that he should be his Adam after he reads Paradise Lost, when in reality both take on the
characteristics of Eve. Like Eve, the monster is a fallen creature born into a world he knows
nothing about. He is kept hidden like Eve was, from conversations about the world around them
and any type of knowledge about life. It is Eves misshapen morality that is parallel with the
monsters actual physical misshapenness, and social illegitimacy.
His first bit of information comes from reading some books that the author Mary Shelley
herself had read. It can be argued that the books for Frankenstein were chosen to embody female

lessons in a male-dominated society. He learns about gentleness, lofty sentiments, and about the
self from Werters story. The monster even said he wept over understanding it. He is introduced
to female modes of domesticity, and the glamor of male heroism which he learns in Plutarchs
book. He is linked however to Eve through his isolation that they both suffer as being less than in
their society.
Victor also embodies Miltons Eve through his own isolation, willingness for knowledge with
lack of concern for the consequences, and then his Eve-like pride. Victor puts himself into a
world of science where he is ignorant of what is going on outside of his world of experiments.
He isnt ignorant like Eve is, but it is his is selfishness for creating life without fear of
consequences that is almost the same as being ignorant. He refuses to think about what will
happen after he creates life, he only wants to do it and gain more knowledge and a huge
scientific discovery. He is then punished for running away from what he created by the monster
destroying innocent people and following Victor around to force him to face what he has done.
Eve and Adam enjoy the physical pleasures of each other, realize their nakedness, and are then
kicked out of paradise as punishment. Eve is always searching and wanting to have a little more
than what the male-dominated world she lives in expects of her, as suggested when she wants to
split up and get the chores finished faster.
Eugene Delacroixs painting of Ophelia also has opened up a new type of window into what
is famine. Ophelia lies in the water, holding desperately onto a branch almost as if she doesnt
want to be swept away. She doesnt truly want to let go, although her face might suggest the pain
she has suffered to get to where she is. She is in the typical nature background that the Romantic
painters were exploring. It works with earthy tones and not a lot of light to reveal her isolation as
she struggles alone through her ordeal. Ophelia is a character from Hamlet, and one of only two

woman characters. She goes crazy with grief after her father is killed and only talks in riddles,
rhymes and poems. She lived in a world of blind love like Eve where she was confident in where
she stood with Hamlet, until his supposed madness causes her to question her reality. Although
constantly manipulated by men throughout the play (her father and the king), her death is the
apple that releases her from the world of world she no longer wanted to be a part of. She is the
fallen woman that Eve, Victor, and the monster all are.
Through literature and art the Romantics believed that feminine meant fallen, best kept
ignorant, but beautiful creates for men to be control. However, woman were starting to question
this position and were eating the apple to become released from their ignorant state of the
typical uneducated woman. Mary Shelly was able to bring the prideful and curious Eve from
Miltons Paradise Lost into her own characters to bring a more feminine touch to her story. As
lost, fallen, and ignorant that all these characters were portrayed, in reality they all broke free
from their chains that society put upon them and wanted to find themselves. None of them had
happy endings to their stories, but each one was able to portray a time periods thought of
feminism.