{"id":117,"date":"2015-09-01T21:31:23","date_gmt":"2015-09-02T02:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/?p=117"},"modified":"2015-09-01T21:31:23","modified_gmt":"2015-09-02T02:31:23","slug":"the-blurred-binary-of-man-vs-beast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/2015\/09\/the-blurred-binary-of-man-vs-beast\/","title":{"rendered":"The Blurred Binary of Man vs. Beast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mary Shelley\u2019s <em>Frankenstein<\/em> delves into the dichotomies between human vs. non-human, and between man vs. beast, and underscores the instability of these binaries. As far as aesthetics are concerned, Frankenstein represents the human side of these dichotomies, while his creation represents the animalistic and non-human side. As the text progresses, these binaries break down and the man vs. beast roles played by Frankenstein and his monster, respectively, become blurred. Frankenstein slowly becomes less \u201chuman\u201d as he works on his creation because he fails to maintain a healthy, restful and social lifestyle and consequently drains himself of life and his humanlike quality. Once he realizes what he has created, he becomes even more beastly as he \u201cshunned the face of all man\u201d and was only consoled by \u201cdeep, dark, deathlike solitude\u201d (100). The discovery of the creature\u2019s nature causes him to become nasty and aggressive: beastlike. Instead of humanely nurturing his creation and giving it the benefit of the doubt, he wishes to \u201cextinguish that life\u201d and \u201cgnashed [his] teeth,\u201d while his \u201ceyes became inflamed\u201d (102) upon realizing what he created and judging it solely on its appearance. In comparison to Frankenstein, his creature is reasonable and eloquent and uses human senses, as it experiences \u201clight, and hunger, and thirst, and darkness; innumerable sounds rang in my ears, and on all sides various scents saluted [it],\u201d and experiences various emotions like \u201cpain and pleasure\u201d (116). The creature is capable of feeling and sensing exactly as humans are, and through observation and reflection the creature begins to live more comfortably. It adapts and learns, much as humans do. Frankenstein, on the other hand, is unable to adapt and instead caves in on himself, becoming less and less human and more inflexible and monstrous as the text progresses. Although their appearances may show otherwise, the creature often behaves in a more \u201chuman\u201d way than does his human creator, which brings up the binary of internal vs. external (in this case, appearance), as the creature\u2019s physical appearance is the obstacle preventing it from appearing human.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mary Shelley\u2019s Frankenstein delves into the dichotomies between human vs. non-human, and between man vs. beast, and underscores the instability of these binaries. As far as aesthetics are concerned, Frankenstein represents the human side of these dichotomies, while his creation &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/2015\/09\/the-blurred-binary-of-man-vs-beast\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4322,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-frankenstein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4322"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions\/119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}