Marlowe's World: Morality and Mystery Plays:

Morality Plays:

·         Dr Faustus has much in common with morality plays that were popular in England at the time

• Moralities typically tell stories that focus on the soul and humanity’s relationship with virtue and temptation.
• E.g. however materially successful our earthly life, it is only our virtue that will help us reach heaven.
• Morality plays personify human qualities such as goodness, or the seven deadly sins.
• The comic scenes in morality plays involving the devil, are often characterised by knockabout physical comedy and carnival elements; a preoccupation with food, sex and drink.
• They also focus on the behaviour of rulers and their responsibility to the state.
• They are a type of allegory in which the protagonist is met by personifications of various moral attributes who try and prompt him to choose a godly life over one of evil – known to be ‘interludes’ which is a broader term given to drama’s with or without a moral theme. However most do have a moral to them.
• Domination/salvation

Mystery plays:

• Are characterised by story’s from the bible
•  They deal with major issues and events in the Christian calendar.
•  The story’s protagonist is at the centre, and other characters are shortly valued.

Marlowe's World: Renaissance and Humanism:

• Critical moment between 1300 and 1600
• Began in Italy – Middle Ages – and spread through Europe.
•  Encompassed a “flowering” of Latin and learning based on classical sources with a gradual but widespread education reform.
•  Renaissance bought “linear perspective” – they painted people smaller to look further away.
• At the end of the era, techniques were developed dealing with light and shadow. 
• Da Vinci – studied human anatomy and wrote 13,000 pages of notes in his lifetime.
• Humanism was based upon the study of the Ancient Greek and Latin authors as models of eloquence and virtue. 
• It also laid great value upon the development of the subjective reader – an educated person who could use their understanding of the classics to investigate all other areas of human knowledge, through experience. 
• Dispute – was hugely important. 
• It was the formal debate in which the speaker would be expected to defend or attack a give premise. 
• Thomas Healy – “16^th Century schools and universities were hardly arenas of intellectual freedom, Marlowe’s education would have done more to facilitate than oppose his opportunities to think against the received opinion.

Marlowe's World: Science and Discovery:

• Science was revolutionised
• 1492 the new world was discovered
• It was a shift from natural philosophy to chemistry and biological sciences.
• New scientific developments were created – such as the telescope.
• Time of questioning – however some still believed in witchcraft.
• Scientists began to question traditional authorities and depended instead upon their own observation.
• The Italian Galileo (1564 – 1642) came into conflict with the church for claiming that the earth was not the centre of the universe.
• Galileo was deemed as the father of modern astronomy - he discovered the 4 moons of Jupiter, the orbits of Venus and the planet Neptune itself.
• Explorers bought back new produce such as spices, silks and gold – sparked great excitement in the popular imagination for stories of distant lands and their people.
• In 1492 Christopher Columbus discovered the new world – America, the Caribbean etc.
• It took him 3 journeys to identify that the world was indeed not flat.

Marlowe's World: Life in Eurpoe just before and during Marlowe's time, including commonly held ideas:

• The 16th Century was a time of unprecedented change.
• Life for many was prosperous early in the century.
• New systems of international finance were invented.
• Ocean fairing fleets - travel/discovery.
• Nature of warfare was rapidly changing - invention of gunpowder meant that Europe was dominated.
• Printing revolution - Bible to the masses led to a media revolution.
• Population increase and high prices led to waged being halved.
• The new world was discovered – jewels, gold and silver were found – helped the loss of wages.
• Peasants lost and the rich gained land.
• The slave trade was initiated as Britain shipped black natives from America.
• People craved the exotic – slaves = spectacles.
• Elizabethan times were considered a time of national pride and genius.
• 1590’s – difficult for commoners because of high debt, taxes, and the loss of life and resources from the war.
• Commoners questioned the right of the monarch.
• 3,000 people were hailed as witches during this time.
• 1534 reformation – Elizabeth felt she had to stand alone against a strongly Catholic Europe to protect her father’s realm.
• People thought about the relationship between themselves as an individual and the authority of the state.
• People began to question the traditional beliefs in rank and social order.
• England had become a proud and independent nation with a leading navy and a highly valued trading power – especially with the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.
• People could move around the country more easily and a competitive capitalist market arose.
• James I in 1603 was a Scot interested in witchcraft who was a supporter of the theatre, and he condoned the actions of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605.
• Religion = huge, bad time to be an atheist.
• There were divisions in the Protestant Church.

Chapters XVIII - XXIV

Chapter XVIII:

• Frankenstein feels he cannot return home, and his health deteriorated - foreshadowing his impending death.
• Nature had temporarily fixed his woes - all healing super being - and he returns home.
• The proposition of marriage between Elizabeth and Victor is discussed - the reader always questions does he love her as a sister or as a wife? Does he even love her at all? "I love my cousin tenderly'
• If Victor truly loved Elizabeth, he would never allow a chance that she could be killed by his creation.
• Thus, Victor leaves Geneva to create the Creature.2 - ultimatum? no other choice - the reader can sympathise with his emotions, but not him as a character.
• he feels he has to protect Elizabeth - physically he can't against the huge mass of the creature. Delusional due to illness?
• He goes to England with Clerval - William Wordsworth 'Tintern Abbey' quote - relevance?
• The joinery he partakes in - links to his journey as a scientist and as a person.

Chapter XIX:

• They arrive at London - Clerval anxious to explore, Frankenstein wants solitude - their eagerness (or lack of) juxtaposes one and other. Exaggeration.
• Clerval - the former self of Victor? Naive?
• Oxford - king and queen story - castles - reminds Victor of the past. Does he look back in anger, or is he reminiscing?
• The hills and mountains of Cumberland remind him of the Alps.
• He is looking at the world with a different - defeated - outlook. Is he preparing to die?
• Clerval and Victors parting shows that Victor has a lack of responsibility towards his friends. He feels no alliance towards them - makes him a dislikeable character.
• He finds solitude in the Orkeny Islands - why did Shelley set the scene in the Orkney Islands?

Chapter XX:

• Solitude - leads to reflection - reflection was needed for him to realise that his life was pre-determined when he made the creature.
• The Moon and the Creature standing before it - Gothic image - fear of the unknown. Romantic also?
• The night time setting makes the reader anxious- they don't know what is going to happen.
• Because of his unreliability, Victor is frivolous at the best of times, let alone with a monster breathing down his neck.
• Victor destroys his half-creation - whirled frenzy of anger and depression.
• The creature calls Victor 'Slave' - is he? Could they - had the circumstances been different - been amicable friends?
• This chapter is full of foreshadowing through the creatures promises and threats 'I shall be with you on your wedding night'
• Victor leaves the Islands and rows towards Ireland. He is greeted unwelcoming. The creature has manipulated the legal system to frame Victor for a crime.
• The reader doesn't know why the Irish are not pleased to see Victor - makes the reader read on. It hooks them.
• The last paragraph brings the reader back to the fact that this is a story being told through the eyes of the Captain, and is therefore unreliable.
• Self pity
• Crushing loneliness

Chapter XXI:

• Victor is tried,  and he testifies against the accusation that he murdered a man on the beach.
• Circumstantia evidence pointed that Victor was the perpetrator -  the evidence is therefore unscientific - not fact based.
• Victor sees the man murdered - Clerval - and goes into (yet another) state of depression.
• His personality is getting more predictable as the plot unfolds - he is very melodramatic in showing his emotions - constantly fainting.
• The nurse and the judge show him compassion and understanding when he is ill - would he do the same for them if he did not know them?
• Victor's father sees him - but Victor refuses to see him at first, however upon seeing him, he is immediately rejuvenated.
• Family is a huge theme, and is very important to the healing of a person, as they can rely on one and other for support.
• 3 months have passed since he was arrested and put in jail - the time span of the novel is erratic- and Victor is freed.
• Victor's bodily capacity fluctuates, and it shows how weak and frail the human body can be - the idea that the Creature is strong and can cope in the wild, highlights this fact.
• Victor - while returning home - has a nightmare and cannot sleep (sleep deprivation like Macbeth) Guilty conscience?

 Chapter XXII

• Foreshadowing is paramount in this chapter.
• The voyage is the main concept of the chapter because it helps to describe Victors eagerness and anxiety of returning home.
• He receives a letter from Elizabeth - romantic because it is like a forbidden love.
• 'I will be with you on your wedding night' foreshadows Elizabeth's death and Victors pain/loss.
• Dopes Victor truly love Elizabeth, or does he merely see her as a possession?
• The couple get married and sail across the river towards their honeymoon - the calm before the storm.

Chapter XXIII:

• Elizabeth is killed by the creature - victor hears a scream. It could have made the novel more Gothic if the reader had some description of the death.
• Victor vows to find and destroy the monster.
• The pistol is useless - shows that no matter how much 'gunpowder' one can get and try and use, it doesn't always solve the problem. Diplomatic answers are far superior.
• Victor 'lost sensation' - very unlike romantics, shows that the novel is not romantic but Gothic in theme.
• Victor goes to a magistrate and tells his story - including creating the creature - he is in want of revenge and justice.
• The magistrate declines his offer - the legal system is flawed?

Chapter XXIV:

• Victor becomes inhumane in his search for the monster and has become the essence of himself.
• Victor, like the monster, has nothing to sustain him except his hatred for the creature and his complete and utter aloneness.
• Elements of religion, Paradise Lost and the devil are echoed throughout the novel, especially in this chapter because Victor recognises that he has lived through the eyes of the characters (Adam, the devil etc)
• Walton views Victor as a noble man, who has lost all because of his persuit for knowledge - the reader knows different. Shows the power of persuasion on Victors behalf.
• Is the creature the hero of the novel, or is Frankenstein the hero? Is there a tragic hero at all?

Second Coursework Ideas...

I was  thinking of writing about the Poem "A Rhapsody on a Windy night" by T.S. Elliot, and linking it with the essay on Metaphor in the Critical Anthology. This is because I don't understand the poem, meaning that I wish to explore why we don't understand it and how metaphors are used to interpret the poem.

I could also interpreting the novel "1984" by George Orwell from a feminist perspective, as Julia is a complex character who is feminist to an extent, but to what extent I could investigate. The essay regarding Gender could be a possible match too.

Another possibility for my Coursework is reading "Catch 22" by Joseph Heller whilst using the anthology to compare the Marxist elements of the novel. It is a novel traditionally associated with the power of bureaucracy, however I could find elements of Marxism within the novel (once I have finished reading it).

Chapters VIII - XVII

Chapter VIII:

• Sad, silent suffering - by Justine, Victor and Elizabeth
• test of personality and strength emotionally?
• Good vs. Evil in courtroom
• Is the law always right?
• Protagonist is narcissistic - doesn't seem to care much for Justine's suffering, only his own.
• "Thus spoke my prophetic soul..." Hamlet - another Gothic play.
• It's Gothic in the sense that the innocent are being condemned unjustly - evil prevails in the court.

Chapter IX:

• Victor considers suicide - selfish, easy way out?
• He leaves his home and wonders towards Chamounix
• Nature - an all healing supernatural power
• mind over matter?
• Victor in oblivion
• does he seek the Alps to freeze his guilt of the murders?

Chapter X:

• theme of sublime nature
• First meeting between Frankenstein and Creature, where the creature shows off his eloquence of rhetoric.
• The creature goes against all laws of nature in Victor's mind - he contradicts the scenery - making him scary and the novel Gothic?
• Frankenstein reluctance shows a form of innocence
• It's the first time Victor understands he has made something better than a living being - the creature thinks and is able to put forth a convincing argument - which, teamed with mass physical strength and ability, shows how scary he is to the world.

Chapter XI:

• The creature begins his tale and talks about how he became aware of his senses - makes the reader realise how sensual a creatures we are. We should take advantage of it and be thankful for what we have been given.
• almost like telling the story of how man has grown into what he is today.
• advanced learning through observation.
• Creature starts to learn about human nature - Cottagers.

Chapter XII:

• solitude through learning about:
• abandonment
• loneliness
• emotion
• history and time
• perseverance
• patience
• is knowledge dangerous - ignorance is bliss?

Chapter XIII:

• nature plays a crucial part - especially the seasons.
• Seasons of life? - Spring = Birth, Winter = death? Romantic.
• The Creature learns about civilisation and human history - does he have a better grasp of human nature and virtues than his creator because he has had to endure and witness them, rather than read about them.
• He has a tougher upbringing than Victor, and he learns from it - is he a better person for it?

Chapter XIV:

• The reader learns more about the cottagers and how they came to be in their social and economical situation.
• The cottagers add another dimension to the novel, making the reader feel like they've been on a journey with the Creature - do we begin to sympathise with him?
• Creature is looking for acceptance from Victor.
• desperation to communicate with others - social needs and desires.

Chapter XV:

• The Creature finds books - Paradise Lost, Sorrows of Werter, and Plutarch's lives.
• Books surrounding the theme of nature, Adam and Eve and the creation/fall of man?? all fictional literature.
• The creature is ever more desperate to show himself to the cottagers
• Shows himself to them and they are horrified - he only ever seems to see the worst side of humanity, thus baking up what he has read and heard about man-kind.
• The creature compares himself to Satan and Adam in Paradise Lost - scolded like Adam and Cursed like Satan.

Chapter XVI:

• As a result of rejection - again - the Creature seeks revenge on his creator.
• "Luxury of sensation"
• The creature still sees nature as beautiful and healing, as well as dangerous and explosive.
• he still feels the natural needs for socialising, hunger, sleep etc... - he is human in every physical and emotional sense.
• He travels towards where Victor rests, and sees Justine - he is able to manipulate the laws of the land in order to make her look guilty for murder - the reader sees for the first time how he is determined and has transformed into a monster through what he has learnt - knowledge really is dangerous.
• he tells Frankenstein that he wants a companion.

Chapter XVII:

• Frankenstein and the creature discuss the idea of "Creature take II" and Victor agrees.
• The creature is fluent in his ability to create arguments and counter arguments - Victors equal intelligently?
• nature humanises the creature and antagonises Victor.
• The Creature seeks solace in the sweet earthy smells and sensation of nature - Romantic: looking for an extension of sensation.