The Elephant Vanishes Sparknotes

Despite the creature’s account that he was initially benevolent, kind and timid, Victor is convinced that if women gained the same knowledge as the creature did, she would be uncontrollable and make her own decision. Shelley enforces the idea that women are usually stigmatized as to have the tendency of being mentally disturbed, thus will make the world goes haywire.

Human beings have full control over their identities after they have received knowledge and have become shaped from external stimuli. These stimuli include the teaching process of humans which comes through tradition, schooling, and the actions of other humans and the influence of the organisms around them. Andrew Solomon, through “Son,” was able to use his experience of growing up and labeling himself as a gay dyslexic to show how his environment and knowledge had shaped his identity and how it was viewed by others with different identities. In “An Elephant Crackup,” Charles Siebert was able to explain how the other organisms or humans are able to form new identities for elephants over time by shaping them a new environment and having the elephants process it. In “Mind’s Eye,” Oliver Sacks had different case studies of blindness from different people and was able to show how each one experienced their blindness help shape and express their individual identities. The stimuli that becomes processed by a person in the situations, accounts, and studies of these works assist in the role of explaining the formulation of an identity.

In Seven Monster Theses, Jeffery Cohen develops an idea that “monsters” are essential to society. In fact, they construct what is “normal”, “rational”, and “civilized”. Specifically, “monsters” are foundational to how we view ourselves. “Monsters” contain all the traits deemed unacceptable and odd. It can be concluded that every outlier is a “monster”. In St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Karen Russell tells the story of a pack of wolf girls who are transitioning into young ladies. Russell delves into society’s need for conformity, gender roles, and change. The story is told from the point of view of the middle wolf girl, Claudette, and follows her on her journey from wolf to woman. In relation to Jeffery Cohen’s idea of monster culture, Claudette’s journey applies to Thesis IV “The Monster Dwells at the Gates of Difference” and part of Thesis I “The Monster’s Body is a Cultural Body”. Claudette is torn between two worlds and she has to learn how to successfully “move between the two cultures”. Through Cohen’s theses, Karen Russell uses character development and dialogue to depict the inner and outer battle of societal femininity and individualized femininity and the consequence of accepting either side. The presence of “monsters” are essential for this acceptance.

Themes and motifs: The book, Water for Elephants, has a symbolic study of human need for love and acceptance. The primary symbols are revealed through unique characters that struggle to feed deep internal desires. Rosie, the elephant, is a big and powerful symbol. More than just being a performing animal, Rosie reflects the desperation of so many

George Orwell began the essay with his perspective on British domination. He stated that it is evil and alongside of that it is oppressive. He felt hatred and guilt toward himself and the Burmese people. The people of Burma did not feel threatened because the narrator of the story had killed the elephant. The Burmese people have lost their dignity and integrity while trying to fight off the British imperialism. Orwell uses allegories to describe his experience of the British imperialism and he had his own view of the matter of slaying the elephant. He successfully used ethos, pathos, and logos by attracting the audience to read his story. He had to make a scene in the story to make the people of Burma feel the same emotion. The elephant was the one reason why it makes this story emotional. He used logos to show that he can kill the elephant even if he does not want to so that it does not make him look fool.

The creature’s greatest desire is to be welcomed by man, and he is prepared to work hard to achieve this goal. He says, ‘“What chiefly struck me was the gentle manners of these people; and I longed to join them, but dared not... I would remain quietly in my hovel, watching and endeavoring to discover the motives which influenced their actions,”’ (Shelley 77). Upon gathering more information about people, the creature leaves his hovel. When he is alone with the blind man, De Lacey, in the cottage, he says “‘...I trust that by your aid, I shall not be driven from the society and sympathy of your fellow creatures.’”(Shelley 98). The creature genuinely believes that despite his physical deformities, he will be accepted by mankind. He thinks that through his ability to contribute to society and his kindness, people will treat him with respect even though he is not physically like them. The creature’s confidence that he would be accepted shows that was overly optimistic about the morality of mankind. At the start of their tumultuous journeys, both the girl and the creature are confident, optimistic beings that seem on track for success.

Upon further probing, there is perhaps a deeper terror rooted in Frankenstein, which subtly appears to stem his hesitancy at creating not just another monster, but specifically a female monster. Because Victor Frankenstein fears the existence of a female free of restrictions that he cannot impose, he destroys her, thus eliminating the female’s options of becoming either completely feminine through becoming a mother and mate, or totally unfeminine by opting to leave her partner and face the world alone.

Women tried to explore their new life of modernity, free from male dominance but that did not stop men from ruling over some of them. This rising trend was; however, threatening men and they reverted by giving them unnecessary medications, allowing them to work and diagnosing them with hysteria. In the novel, women are given the character of a monster thus appearing stronger than normal humans, though in the long run, men still rule over them. The power imbalance between men and women in the novel allow women to be susceptible to the rules imposed on them by men.

Over the years, the monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has become universally portrayed in one way: a tall, green-skinned, dumb brute with no language or reasoning abilities. Society has turned the story of Frankenstein into a mere horror story, dehumanizing the monster more than was intended in Shelley’s novel. However, the message of Frankenstein is a far cry from the freak show displayed by the media. While many people may only see Frankenstein as a grotesque story meant to thrill its audience, its purpose goes much deeper as it advocates for the equal rights of women in society.

In Margaret Atwood’s “Lusus Naturae”, a young girl/ monster is hidden away from the world because her family will not accept her appearance. While her parents thought keeping her locked up in the house was a beneficial decision, she became isolated and lacked the knowledge and understanding of the world outside her four walls. Even though “Lusus Naturae” is a dark, twisted, and frightening tale there is more to the story than just a “freak of nature” being hidden from the world. One must read the story more in depth and closer to illustrate the themes of women’s roles in society in relation to the monster. Margaret Atwood uses symbolic parallels and narrative tones to exemplify her views of women’s historical roles in society.

For centauries, women have been forced to live life in the outskirts of a male dominated society. During the 1800’s, the opportunities for women were extremely limited and Mary Shelly does an excellent job in portraying this in her gothic novel, Frankenstein. Furthermore, in this novel, Mary Shelly shows how society considers women to be possessions rather than independent human beings. In addition, the female characters rely heavily on men for support and survival, thus proving their inability to do it on their own. Lastly, the female characters in this novel are in many ways victimized by the male characters. In conclusion, in Mary Shelly’s novel Frankenstein, the female characters always fulfill the limited and archetypical roles that

Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein primarily focuses on Victor and his monster, but women also play a part. There are three major female figures in the novel; the housekeeper for the Frankenstein family: Justine, Victor’s “adopted cousin” and later wife: Elizabeth, and the never completed female monster. To both Victor and the monster woman are desired objects that offer comfort and companionship, but as the novel goes on, women become targets for revenge. This goes to show that the women in Frankenstein prove to be both powerless and powerful when it comes to dealing with the men that surround them.

In “Monster Culture”, Jeffery Cohen develops an idea that “monsters” are essential to society. In fact, they construct what is “normal”, “rational”, and “civilized”. Specifically, “monsters” are foundational to how we view ourselves. “Monsters” contain all the traits deemed unacceptable and odd. It can be concluded that every outlier is a “monster”. In St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Karen Russell tells the story of a pack of wolf girls who are transitioning into young ladies. Russell delves into society’s need for conformity, gender roles, and change. The story is told from the point of view of the middle wolf girl, Claudette, and follows her on her journey from wolf to woman. In relation to Jeffery Cohen’s idea of monster culture, Claudette’s journey applies to Thesis IV “The Monster Dwells at the Gates of Difference” and part of Thesis I “The Monster’s Body is a Cultural Body”. Claudette is torn between two worlds and she has to learn how to successfully “move between the two cultures”. Through Cohen’s theses, Karen Russell uses character development and dialogue to depict the inner and outer battle of societal femininity and individualized femininity and the decision of accepting either side. The presence of “monsters” are essential for this acceptance.

For example, Frankenstein is afraid of the female creature’s “reproductive powers” and her aesthetic as a whole that seeing as her monstrous stature defies the stereotype that “women should be small, delicate, passive, and sexually pleasing” (7). On top of this, Mellor claims that Frankenstein’s unwillingness to complete the female monster stems from being “afraid of an independent female will” that “cannot be controlled” , thus implying that “female sexuality is strikingly repressed”

In the short story, The Elephant in the Village of the Blind, there are a group of blind villagers that come across a conflict amongst themselves. The villagers are being introduced to an elephant for the first time in their lives. In curiosity, they all feel different parts of the elephant, observing the different textures and body parts. As they discuss their different views and experiences from touching the elephant their personal ideas created conflicts. As they disagree, it creates an interesting representation of human interaction. In this story, the conflicts that arise between the villagers represent the small bubble of human observation and subjectivity, and how much of human interaction is about competing to be correct in our beliefs because ego and self worth drive how we interact with each other.