Comparison between Lawrence's stories

Another short story written by D.H Lawrence is called "The Odour of Chrysanthemums". This short story is about a woman whose husband works in a mine.

The story that analized in the previous post "The Rocking-Horse Winner", by the same author, has certain similarity to the story "The Odour of Chrysanthemums", especially when they express the absence of a family member like parents. The first one showed the absence of loving from the mother to the child, replaced by the importance of money. On the other hand, the presence of the main character's husband is also missing in the story. The man in this story is absent either because he is working in the mine or drinking in a pub. He is found death afterwards.

Another similarity is that the main characters experience the death of their relatives: The son of the woman in "The Rocking-Horse Winner" and the husband of the woman in "The Odour of Chrysanthemums". Their death are an attempt to change the perception of the world in both women.

The Rocking-Horse Winner (D.H Lawrence)

In a family there is a woman whose husband did not earn enough money. “The mother had a small income, and the father had a small income, but not nearly enough for the social position which they had to keep up”.

The woman thought that having money is being lucky. Paul her son asked his mother what being lucky means. His mother said that "It's what causes you to have money. If you're lucky you have money. That's why it's better to be born lucky than rich. If you're rich, you may lose your money. But if you're lucky, you will always get more money."

After that, Paul felt that being lucky required not to be wealhty but also requires being loved. What the child wanted is to gain his mother attention and get rid of her ambition that worried the boy. But the boy wanted to see her mother happy so he needed desperately to know about the winners of horse races in order to gain money through bets. The boy tried to make her mother feel lucky until the boy felt ill and died. The story shows the “overestimation” that people give to money more than the interest in people they love.

The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen (by Graham Greene)

The short story called “The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen” takes place in a restaurant and whose characters are a woman who is a writer, her fiancé and japanese gentlemen and the omniscient narrator who is aware of everything that happened in the story, especially the characters’ behaviour.

The lady was a person who only cared about her future, her job as a writer and how much she is going to be paid for her publications. Her fiancé is a man who was worried about saying nothing that her girl would take ofensive. Finally, we can see a group of Japanese gentlemen whose language is illegible but the narrator knew about their manners by noticing the way they smile and bow to each other. At first, they seemed not to be important in the story, but at they end they helps us to determine the behaviour of the lady whose interest in her job was more important than the rest of the guests in the party, especially the Japanese gentlemen. By this I mean that these gentlemen were noticed by everybody except for the lady who was interested in her job as writer. They were like “invisible” for the lady, which is the reason of the title of the story.

Essay: Comparing Frankenstein and Shelley's life

The novel Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus is considered as one of the most fascinating and ineresting masterpieces created by the writer Mary Shelley. This book contains Shelley’s imagination and knowledge which made possible this interesting reading. Nevertheless, it is also possible to learn about the content of the book by analyzing the context in which the author lived. In fact, Shelley’s feelings can be also explicit in the plot. In this essay we will be able to recognize the relationship between this novel and Mary Shelley’s context.

The book Frankenstein, written by Shelley narrates the story of Dr Victor Frankenstein, a man whose interest for the secret of the human life led him to create a being by ataching different body parts and then he gave his creation life by electricity. However, Dr. Frankenstein felt dissapointed as soon as he saw a hideous monster instead of a “perfect” being as he wanted, therefore he felt the need to abandon his creation. Afterwards, the monster left the laboratory and went towards the mountains and he ran into a cottage dwelt by a family. While the monster was hidden near the cottage he become educated and he also learned about the humanity. Since the monster realized of his difference from the rest of the human beings he started to feel sad and dissapointed. He felt as a real monster when he realized that people escaped terrified as soon as they saw him. For that reason, the monster began to blame his ow creator and the mankind itself for his sadness, so the monster looked for Dr Frankenstein in order to take vengeance.

As I could apreciate in this novel, the creator as well as the creation showed their interest in create knowldege from what they learned. Victor Frankenstein’s curiosity of knowing all about the secret to create and give life to a being led him to study different fields of Sciences. On the other hand, Frankenstein’s monster understood certain human behaviour by observing a family.

Despite of his rejection from the society, the monster was devoted to learn and apply what he learned. So did Mary Shelley. In fact, by analyzing the context in which Shelley lived, I could notice her feelings reflected in her novel. Shelley, who was the daugther of a feminist and the wife of a poet, wrote the novel Frankenstein when she was 19 years old. “What is surprising [...] is the enormous body of knowledge contained in the novel. The novel contains references to the fields of literature, poetry, science, education, politics, history, and mythology” . All these fields are expressed in the content of the book.

It is also surprising the fact that Shelley showed devotion in create a fascinating book despite of social and financial problems she had to face. These difficulties such as her husband’s debts, the death of her mother and Shelley’s newborn son and the suicide of her half sister, seemed not to be an obstacle to create this novel full of imagination and knowledge along with her own experience.

Shelley’s passion to acquire knowledge through different researches is evident in the mentioned novel. It can be compared with the words of Dr Frankenstein: “I have described myself as always having been imbued with a fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of nature”(Shelley, 40)

. Like the monster of the story, who desired to know about his origins, Mary Shelley felt rejected by the society and, therefore she learned about what she knew based on a self-teaching. "My education was neglected, yet I was passionately fond of reading. These volumes were my study day and night" (Shelley, 2) Since the author did not received a formal education like the rest of the women in that period, she quest for what she needed to know. This method led her to research all de fields mentioned before which made possible this book. Shelley’s passion to innovate can be also reflected in Dr Victor Frankenstein, the one who created the monster. As a personal interpretation I would say the author’s determination to join all she researched to create this novel is the same determination of Dr. Frankenstein to create the monster by joining parts of the human body.

As a conclusion, what makes this book Frankenstein an interesting masterpiece is the fact that its content can have a relationship with the author herself, By this I mean that when Mary Shelley wrote this book she thought about her own experience and problems which were useful as a mean of inspiration in order to write the book. As a reader, I could infer that some attitudes in characters like Victor Frankenstein and his monster have a certain similitude with Shelley’s characteristics and feelings. One of the points that I will analyze is the idea of the character Victor Frankenstein to attach different parts of the body, which belonged to different corpses, in order to create a being and give him life afterwards.This attitud can also have relation with Shelley’s need to create this fascinating book by joining her knowledge of Sciences, Literature, Philosophy, and Mithology. Thus she would give shape to the story in the book.

1. http://www.kimwoodbridge.com/maryshel/knowledge.shtml
2. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus. p. 40

My essay's outline

The Essay I will write about the book Frankenstein, but focusing on the context in which the author lived that led her to write the book. (Relation Book-Author)

1)Introduction (Thesis statement:"Relation between Frankenstein and Shelley's context")

2)A brief description of the book's content

3)A brief description of Shelley's experience and her conection with the main characters (victor Frankenstein and the Monster).

4)My Interpretation/Feelings about the relationship between Shelley's life and the book.

5)Conclusion.

Oliver Twist & the Signal-man (by Charles. Dickens)

The author Charles Dickens wrote two of the most important stories based on mystery, fears, poverty and abuse of power. The two stories that I will compare are The Signal-Man and Oliver Twist.

In the story The signal man, by Dickens I could see the mystery that it envolves, like the appearance of a ghost and the prediction af the signal man death. It is shown that people are often worried about what would happen in the nearest future, either worries about a possible accident or worries about socio-economic problems, like in Oliver Twist.

In this story the topics can be also poverty and power abuse, which are clearly expressed and the attempt of the main character to escape from the opression of being abused by people in charged of the orphanage that overwhelmed him during his childhood.

Shelley & Frankenstein: Knowledge Comparative Framework

One of the most famous novel written by Mary Shelley is Frankenstein. Shelley wrote this novel based on researchs she made which are related to sciences, literarure, poetry etc;, plus her own context and experience. Her life was overwhelmed by financial, social and familiar problems, which she wanted to express, somehow, in the novel.
For example we saw that in the novel there’s a monster who learned by himself in a context in which he felt lonely. So did Shelley. Actually she learned about sciences, literature, etc, by herself in order to create the novel. What I impressed most about her is the fact that this woman showed her desire to acquire knowledge by reading books in times of isolation from the rest of the people. "My education was neglected, yet I was passionately fond of reading. These volumes were my study day and night" (Shelley, 2)