Nyomi Mosley
ENG 102
Cline
9 October 2011
The critical article that I chose to write about was written by Christopher Small, and it is titled “[Percy] Shelly and Frankenstein”. This article was one of modern times writings and unfortunately it does not have a date that refers to when it was written. However it includes an excellent relation of Frankenstein to those involved in Mary’s life. One of the family members that Small seemed to be centered on was Mary’s husband, Shelly. He believed that Frankenstein was an example of Shelly, and that various members of Shelly’s family were also related to some of the book’s characters. In the beginning he also brought up the fact that Byron and Shelly were the people that gave Mary the idea to write Frankenstein. His showed the relation of Shelly’s friends through various examples and explanations each point was well thought out and well researched at every turn.
I believe that Small’s explanation of Frankenstein was one that I never really thought of, and for this reason I was enticed to read his whole article. One thing that really helped me was realizing the fact that Small wrote only about a small part of the book. When I realized this I really understood what Laura B. Cline was talking about in her video when she was telling us not to choose a broad topic. I find that at times I tend to write about the larger topics. I was in fact thinking about writing about Frankenstein as a whole book rather than finding something specific to write about. Yet, this article caused me to really think about shortening my topics. One thing that made me not want to shorten my topic was the thought that I wouldn’t have enough to write about and thus my essay would not be interesting. However, after reading Christopher Small’s article I realize that a small topic can make for an interesting essay. I do not believe that I will use very much of his article in my third essay, but it do believe that I have learned something about writing my third essay. The reason I have chosen not to use very much of his article in my essay is because I do not see why it is important to involve and outside character in an explanation of Frankenstein. However, I will be taking all that I have learned from this article and using it in my essay. The things that I learned were to find a smaller main topic, and to make my essay interesting as well. These are the things that I believe Christopher Small did very well.
If you would like to know more about Percy Shelly here is a link, this is the same link for my visual:
Hello,
ReplyDeleteYou chose a very good article and elaborated on it. I didn't choose this one but you did however make some good points about this article. The main point you wrote about was that you don't have to write about the whole novel, but you can still have an interesting essay by one focal point. This is was a very good thought that I believe might even help myself. I seem to think that the entire story has to be analyzed in order to have any meaning but like you said, it doesn't.