Thinking Activity: Frankenstein

Thinking Activity

 (Frankenstein)

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein v/s Kenneth Branagh's movie Frankenstein:

(Post-viewing tasks)

This blog is a response to task assigned by Heenaba Zala. To visit the task Click Here.

(1)What is the difference between the movie and the novel?

While speaking both of these words movie and novel, different ideas and views comes in front of our eyes. We can also say that, "if novel is heart so, movie is heartbeat." If reading of the novel leads us to imagination then watching movies leads us to see images of imagination. Kenneth Branagh's "Frankenstein" and Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" is the best example for this.

"I will add but word as to the alternation I have made. Throughout they are entirely confined to such parts as are mere adjuncts to the story, leaving the core and substance of it's untouched."

-Mary Shelley

(Author's Introduction)

If we just look at these words of Mary Shelley, it seems that Kenneth Branagh has literally followed this in his movie. The whole movie is faithful to the novel, hence director Kenneth Branagh has made several kinds of changes from the novel. He has made this changes just to bring liveliness to the movie.

The promise of the movie's title, along with the breaking of that promise, offers us case study to examine the way fidelity remains the dominant paradigm, even when director knows that such fidelity is impossible to achieve.

-Julie Sloan Brannon

Now, if just try to find out the differences and similarities between movie and novel, here are some important key facts:

	Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein"	Kenneth Branagh's "Frankenstein"
Genre	Gothic novel,  horror fiction, science fiction	Horror drama film Scientific fiction
Set in	late 18th century	Late 18th century
Place	England	England
Beginning	Captain Robert Walton writing letters to his sister.	In 1794, Captain Walton leads a troubled expedition to reach the North Pole. While their ship is trapped in the ice of the Arctic Sea, the crew discovers a man, Victor Frankenstein, traveling across the Arctic on his own. Victor proceeds to tell Walton and the crew his life story.
Recreation of Lady Elizabeth	Monster demands for companion or friend or rather for female friend and Victor creates	Bursting into emotions and feelings towards his beloved Elizabeth, Victor wants to be alive his wife and suddenly starts his experiment and does his wife alive with experience of first experiment of creation of Monster.
Ending	It's not very clear in the novel whether Monster lives or dies or runs away. Shelley has ended this novel with open ending or it has been left upon readers.	With his creative and artistic style, Kenneth Branagh has ended movie with realization to Monster about father son relationship. At the very middle of the ocean upon a type of island Monster gave funeral to his father and also died with him.

(2)Does the movie helps you to understand narrative structure of the novel?

Movie helps vigorously in narrative structure of the novel. As we all know, Reading unfolds greater than watching scenes but we should not forget that it's also very toughest task for director to bring images to the words.  How narrative structure goes in the movie it's really interesting! Shelley's Gothic novel "Frankenstein" has a unique plot and structure which Kenneth Branagh has kept in mind throughout the movie and without any doubt this helps us in wider understanding of the movie.

(3)Do you think the movie is helpful to understand the viewpoints of different characters?

Characterization is the second important part of any movie or novel & it is also matters a lot what kind of imagination occurs in our mind while reading the novel. And if we just try to look at Kenneth Branagh's movie "Frankenstein" we come to know that most of the characters seems to be pass on our imaginative judgements. Major two characters of the novel, Victor Frankenstein and the monster both are portrayed in that manner that it's very difficult for the audience to come out from its influence. Both brings very picture to the heart of audience. Other characters like Elizabeth, his friend and all these characters are also at the heart of audience.

In adding this, characters behavior is

also remains true to their type. It's also very tough task for any Director to come out with the characters who puts his faces to words of novel and at some very extend level, Kenneth Branagh passes on this ground.

(4)What do you think about the creation of lady monster in the novel and Elizabeth's look of a monster in the movie?

(5)Think about Victor's acceptance of Elizabeth and rejection of the monster.

Before discussing about Victor's acceptance of Elizabeth and rejection of Monster, it's very important to know about acceptance or rejection. Let first be very clear about that however one is unbiased or neutral towards anything or any situation, one can not easily come out from emotions and feelings and that's all. It's all about perception. There is no any particular factors which are playing a role in conditioning Victor's mind, but it's about perception of looking at Monster(Victor's just experiment) and Lady Elizabeth (Victor's beloved).

At first look, the major difference between both of them is that they both are made up with different purpose. Monster was created just for Victor's experiment or rather for his sake.When Victor recreates Elizabeth with his experiment, he simply accepts her as she is her beloved and bursting into feelings and emotions, without thinking even for a moment he makes Elizabeth alive with scientific experiment and accept her as his loved one. While if we just look at the monster, Monster is abandoned by his creator as he is ugly looking, or rather for that it would be very dangerous for society also. As common human beings, Victor is also conditioned by society and Ultimately because of having fear of society, Victor is not capable of accepting Monster. But while matter comes of Elizabeth, he simply forgets every norms and biases of society and accept her.

(6)Do you think the director is faithful to the novel?

If the author is the mother then the director is the maternity. To which extend Mary Shelley tries to lead us, Kenneth Branagh helps us to reach there. From the very beginning of the movie, from the very first scene Branagh has tried to be true to novel throughout the whole movie. Not only that, dialogues and scenes which are narrated in the novel seemed happening in front of our eyes, while watching Kenneth Branagh's "Frankenstein". Though director has made several changes in his movie, but it just to make it artistic impressive. Second creation of lady Elizabeth after monster, and destroyance of monster in the movie which comes at the very end, is quite different from the novel, but it brings charm to the movie and becomes an important portion of. 

Original screenwriter Frank Darabont later called the film "the best script I ever wrote and the worst movie I've ever seen." He elaborated:

"There's weird doppelganger effect when I watch the movie. It's kind of like the movie I wrote, but not at all like the movie I wrote. It has no patience for subtlety. It has no patience for the quiet moments. It has no patience period. It's big and loud and blunt and rephrased by the director at every possible turn. Cumulatively, the effect was a totally different movie. I don't know why Branagh needed to make this big, loud film ... the material was subtle. Shelley's book was way out there in a lot of ways, but it's also very subtle. I don't know why it had to be this operatic attempt at filmmaking. Shelley's book is not operatic, it whispers at you a lot. The movie was a bad one. That was my Waterloo. That's where I really got my ass kicked most as a screenwriter ... [Branagh] really took the brunt of the blame for that film, which was appropriate. That movie was his vision entirely. If you love that movie you can throw all your roses at Ken Branagh's feet. If you hated it, throw your spears there too, because that was his movie.

Overall, Kenneth Branagh's "Frankenstein" helps us to understand Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein". The director Kenneth Branagh is faithfully to novel "Frankenstein".

Thinking Activity: (Matthew Arnold)

Thinking Activity
(Matthew Arnold)

(Characteristics of Good Poetry and criticism)

"Poetry is criticism of life, governed by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty."

- Matthew Arnold

By giving his views on good poetry he says that, “The superior character of truth and seriousness, in the matter and substance of the best poetry, is inseparable from the superiority of diction and movement marking its style and manner.”

W.J.Long says for Arnold that, “The best has been thought and said in the world and by using this knowledge to create a current of fresh and free thought.”


Hello friends,

This blog is response to the task assigned by Dr.Dilip Barad sir for Thinking Activity on Matthew Arnold. Here is the link to view the task.Click Here

Arnold's view on good poetry:

Characteristics of good poetry

Poetry should be detached from the personal fallacies of the poet.  Poet has to detach himself from personal prejudices. Remember the term disinterestedness. Poet must keep himself aloof from the poem. No personal attachment.

All literature is the application of ideas to life. So "poetry is an application of ideas to life" is simply a vain repetition. Arnold believes that the ideas and sentiments to have any permanent value must be based on actual life. Thoughts and feelings excluded from the action might be the creed of a few poets. But they have no charm for him.

In respect of our analysis above, we can say that Arnold's theory of poetry expressed in "The Study of poetry" may be questionable in details and on minor points. It is true that his views on poetry are quite mature. They are in harmony with modern ideas. Arnold believes in the high destiny of poetry. So he does not hesitate to express his exalted view of poetry. He has analysed the nature and function of excellent poetry highlighting its striking features.

Touchstone Method:

Touchstone Method is a term coined by Matthew Arnold, the famous Victorian poet and critic. He introduced the term in his essay “Study of Poetry” to denote short but distinctive passages, selected from the writing of great poets, which he used to determine the excellence of passages or poems which are compared to them.

Arnold delineated his idea of excellent poetry and formulates a practical method for identifying the true poetry. This method is comparative method of criticism.

• General principles

Scientific objectivity to critical evaluation by providing comparison and analysis as the two primary tools for judging individual poets.  

As Arnold puts it, “There can be no more useful help for discovering what poetry belongs to the class of the truly excellent.. than to have always in one's mind lies and expressions of the great masters and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry.”

The best way to know the class, to which a work belongs in terms of the excellence of art, Arnold recommends, is

“To have always in one’s mind lies and expressions of the great, masters and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry.”

Comparing with the best lines and passages from Homer and Shakespeare, Arnold surveys the entire track of English poetry, and divides the various poets into the categories of the good-and-great and the not-so-great. His idea of tradition is select in that only the great constitute the body of literary history we should care for, and the rest we better ignore. 

Arnold’s view of the greatness in poetry and what a literary critic should look for are summed up as follows:

“It is important, therefore, to hold fast to this;

 That poetry is at bottom a criticism of life;

That the greatness of a poet lies in his powerful and beautiful application of ideas to life,

To the question: how to live.”

William Galbraith says that..

“Familiarity may breed contempt in some areas of human behavior, but in the field of social ideas it is the touchstone of acceptability.”

Workshop on Quality and Authenticity of Web Resources

Workshop on Quality and Authenticity of Web Resources

This blog is a response to the reflective blog task assigned by Dr.Dilip Barad sir about workshop held on 19th November, 2019 about Quality and Authenticity of Web Resources. 

In this workshop we have discussed SEER (SOURCE EDUCATIONAL EVALUATION RUBRIC) in detail.

At Present, students have probably changed the meaning of research. Even so, research seems to have become a research. To complete their tasks and perform well in front of their classmates and teacher as if students seems to have put aside the moral and thinking capacity too. Students search for best things and do not hesitate slightest to give their name only for they worked on searching. Why?

Is the world at the fingerprints going to shake even the soles of the feet?

At the same time, it is equally important that the information that the students receives from the Internet should be used only as a reference, because collecting, integrating different information is not a research and thus searching is a steal of the ideas of the students. The mind has to be tricked because the students do not even realize that what they are doing is actually doing something wrong, unless the students themselves have a knack for doing so. No any problem can be solved because the acceptance of the problem as a prerequisite to the solution of any problem.

Not only that, it has become difficult for students to access information that is appropriate and useful in academic work, When students search the internet for the purpose of finding information about a single word, the pages that open in the hundreds of pages make it difficult for students to finally trust more information and use that information in their own study by giving more credence to what information is.

This is why Turnitin has released important information to us with particular emphasis on personal search issues.

Now question arises that What is Turnitin?

Turnitin is the global leader in evaluating and improving students writing. The company’s cloud-based service for originality checking, online grading and peer review saves instructors time and provides rich feedback to students. One of the most widely distributed educational applications in the world, Turnitin is used more than 10,000 institutions in 126 countries to manage the submissions, tracking and evaluation of student paper online. Turnitin also offers iThenticate, a plagiarism detection service for commercial markets and Writecheck, a suite formative tools for writers. Turnitin is backed by Warburg Pincus and is headquartered in Oakland, Calif., with an international office in Newcastle, UK.

Evaluation of three sites:

This image shows criteria for evaluation of site and on the basis of this chart one can have better idea while taking source from any cite and it also helps in self peer evaluation for students.

Three evaluations:

Plagiarism:

Now, let’s talk about  plagiarism. 

We can say that technology is smarter than humans and there is no doubt about it. But students have gone 100% in trying to deceive machine. Instead of developing new ideas and creativity, students discover the alternatives immediately via internet.

Thus, it is very important for children to be educated in the right direction for a better and brighter future and Turnitin has worked hard for this in bringing awareness.