jason's space

4.2 ad descriptions

2006-05-01T12:35:00.001-07:00

4.2
My first ad is from the 1920s advertising Borjois java face powder. The big print reads when nature is niggardly. This ad uses a favorable image of a pretty skinny white woman blowing bubbles at cherubs. It also guarantees to make women more beautiful but the image suggests that women should be skinnier blonde and white. This is the image juxtaposed against the comment that one could change nature’s complexion with a face powder. It masks the real appearance of what nature gave the women.
The next ad by Ivory soap from the 1920s as well shows a woman petting a lamb with a gentleman peering at her in the distance. This ad reads like an article from a woman’s magazine. IT says “a child who grew up and learned the safe way to loveliness” The safe, easy and most trusted way is through Ivory soap. This ad asks the women to choose the more docile and comforting approach to be noticed petting a lamb by some sweet gentleman. With adding words like delicate, charming, thin, sensitive this ad suggests morals and thoughts docile women have. Simple Ivory soap can grant a simple complexion but it’s noticed just like a lady should be.
This next ad is for hearing aids. But the target audience is fathers who want their kids to do better in school. This picture of a dads hands looking at below average but not horrible grades is foreground to a confused kid saying “But Jeepers Dad it’s hard to hear what Teacher says!!” The ad assumes kids who get bad grades need only hearing aids and this offers a quick fix to the bad grades. It tells the father to become the solutions creator for a small amount of fifty dollars your kid could have good grades.
This next one is paid for by the U.S. war Advertising Council during WW2. It has a soldier with a gun urging a citizen with his paycheck in his hands to stop spending money because it raises the cost of living if more money is spent than goods produced. This ad is encouraging people of the US to spend less money on frivolous things because resources are tight because of the war. This is the exact opposite of capitalistic thought. It is interesting that America fought Communism with these kinds of ads being circulated merely ten years before sponsored by the government. There is a paragraph that urges people to spend money on war bonds, taxes, and savings banks. War is a funny thing that makes even the greediest country founded on competition and wealth spending to ask the country to invent more in the government.
This next men’s hair tonic ad from the 1920s starts out as a public service announcement about tight fitting hats (which were the fashion of the time) causing male pattern baldness. Then it suggests ways to make the hair strong by buying the product, making it look like it causes men not to be bald and allowing the men to still wear their stylish tight fitting derbies with ease. Men are asked here to become fashionable and not bald with the simple application of a product, a seemingly easy task from a man’s point of view.

4.2 ad descriptions

2006-05-01T12:35:00.000-07:00

Printing press or computer?

2006-04-24T06:16:00.000-07:00

How humans communicate how the brain works is detrimental to how we understand the ways in which we speak. If we talked about the mind as a loose metaphor for a printing press insight is hidden and other insights are highlighted. The brain is a printing press metaphor highlights the fixed memory humans seem to have. Just like a printing press it was once thought that memories and their emotional ties to the state of mind humans are in when they remember this memory is permanent. Once the letters are pressed onto the paper there is little that can be done to ‘erase’ the letters. This loosely holds true for the memories and the brains functioning. Fluidity of thought is lost in this metaphor. The brain has an amazing capacity for memory but what was once compared to a printing press has now, with a little more understanding, been compared to a computer. The printing press leaves no room for change in the data that streams to the brain. With a computer one could erase and change data. But this computer metaphor has its drawbacks as well. The model needs to read like this: A massive amount of computers networked together on multiple levels allowing for multiple access points is the brain. What Taylor and many other scientists use to explain the complexity of human thought is a network metaphor. The brain, like the world in which it is enmeshed, then, operates according to network logic. “Changes in the structure and function of the brain result both from the coadaptation of neural networks within the brain and from the coadaptation between the brain and its environment. As a result of its coadaptive capacity, the brain is not hardwired but, like all complex networks, functions between fixity and flux. The constraints facilitating brain functions and mental activity are not completely predetermined but change in relation to other physical, chemical, and biological processes” (Taylor).
An example of the fluid networking nature is the reconstruction of memories. Memories are not hardwired into the brain ready to be recalled in the exact form in which the person perceived the memory. Rather, memories are reconstructed calling on the activation of many neurons across multiple networks to build the memory to process into conscious thought. Here is where the printing press metaphor fails to explain. A reason why, though, that people of that era until recently have used the printing press as a viable explanation to the way humans think is because not enough was known about the brain’s interworkings. A lot was assumed like since we seem to be able to instantly recall events that happened to us years ago must mean that memories are kept in a location ready to be perfectly intact and drawn up like a document fresh off the press.
These metaphors help explain to a layperson how human thought is constructed but only through more probing of the mind can any real information about thought come from. Yes, the printing press does help to explain the vast storage capacity of the brain and the ability to recall intact memories instantly. Yes, the computer model helps to give further details about the brains fluid changing nature. But these models change with both the advent of new technology but more importantly more data on the brain. The memory example is a good explanation as to why these metaphors may break down once more info about the brain surfaces. This explains the change in metaphor usage. Maybe twenty years from now we will be comparing human thought to some new technology because more is discovered about the brain. What is interesting is that our daily language still retains these old metaphors even after they are considered obsolete. Why is the word impression still being used when we have theoretically moved on from this metaphor in explaining human thought?

Metaphors in Brain Functioning

2006-04-21T06:06:00.000-07:00

There are an immense number of vivid metaphors for the explanation of how the human brain works in this string of quotes. The first one comes from Rosenthal’s Women and Depression. She said the mind is a washing machine. The serotonin is the water that flushes out and cycles the feelings. Depression is a low water pressure problem in the workings of the machine. If depression is seen of as an easily fixable problem in a washing machine the implication here is that an easy solution is the only way to cure the ailment of depression. This notion would adhere to our modern society’s logic of pills curing people’s psychological problems.
A complete opposite interpretation of depression but still compares the brain to a machine is what David Burns brings in Feeling Good. He equates the problem of depression to a scratchy station reception on a radio. There is nothing wrong with the hardware or the station that only thing that is wrong is that the dial is just slightly out of tune rendering the scratchy reception. Burns says that if we can mentally tune our emotions to the right feelings there would be no depression. I personally do not agree with the amount of control this metaphor assumes people have in their feelings. Some people do have bouts of depression that cannot be lifted merely by thinking happy thoughts. There is a serious difference in a somewhat normal person’s brain chemistry and a person’s with depression.
The two Freud articles assign human characteristics to the brain’s functioning in a stressful environment. The metaphor about the explorer’s urging to talk to the people of the newly discovered culture or to take a pick ax and begin the excavation process on the surrounding culture rich buildings. Freud wants to take a two prong ‘attack’ at the getting to the origins of hysteria. He places a lot of trust in the patient’s ability to recall the situation that caused this hysteria. He also asks the patient to confront the problematic situation probably causing more stressful memories and a feeling of unease may set in. This metaphor may predetermine how certain psychoanalytic therapists approach their practice. This metaphor really is grounded in Freudian psychoanalytic treatment philosophy and is a major proponent to predetermine action. The other Freud article explains the concept of the Id and Ego as two competing forces in everyone’s brains that serve as a protection mechanism against overly troubling memories or images turned into memories or thoughts that may be harmful to the person. These thoughts are repressed and kept hidden from the conscious mind. Hysteria begins with the overwhelming of this ego. The ego is forced to discharge feelings of fear. This metaphor explains a lot about hysteria but there is no scientific proof of these forces competing for emotional power in our brain. This is only a theory but all the tenants of this theory are explainable. This is another major proponent of action based on a metaphor because it too is taught to psychotherapists following the Freud teachings.

whose fault is a possession?

2006-04-19T06:30:00.000-07:00

Who is to Blame in a Possession?
The difference between thinking of an illness as a disease and thinking about it as a spiritual problem is the presence of guilt and placing the blame. If the illness is thought of as a disease there is no blame on the victim for what has happened to him/her. If the illness is thought to be caused by the devil possessing the victim’s body then the placing of blame or a logical explanation as to why the devil picked the particular victim is sought after. Most of that era would say the people possessed by the devil somehow deserved their plight. They are weak of spirit and can be easily persuaded to have the devil enter into their brains. The society will usually use these victims as a lesson to others to be more vigilant against the devil or someone might become possessed like these poor souls.
With the illness metaphor a hospital is the way to fix or suppress the illness of modern society. Accountability is different than in the possession metaphor. No it was not the victim’s fault but it’s the victim’s job to get better or learn to live with the illness. In the spiritual problem metaphor the blame is on the victim but society does not stress that the victim fix their illness because no one can get rid of the devil by any means short of exorcism. They coax the devil out of Margaret Cooper by idly praying. Ian Hacking, a proponent of social construction, would say that spiritual intervention or possession is false and that the correct way to handle these women would be to consider their ailment an illness.

2006-04-14T06:10:00.000-07:00

"C. Montgomery Burns: [over P.A. system] Mindless drones! Return to your ugly families!
Homer Simpson: D'oh! "

This Simpsons quote depicts Burns workers as robots without feelings. This metaphor brings out the qualities humans have for getting obsessed with their job or for getting caught up thinking that the job is their life. They do the same thing day in and day out without reprieve. I think everyone at some point has felt these mind numbing effects of monotony. We start to question if all this work could be done as efficiently as a robot.

"I want to PUMP you up!"
Arnold Schwarzenegger

This quote is taken from Arnold's workout videos. He depicts the human body as a ball or Nike shoe that can be expanded with air or some other kind of substance. The obvious metaphorical meaning is that he wants to get you exited about working out or that he really does want to make your muscles get bigger. But he didn’t say that he said this metaphor and it turned into a catch phrase, a great advertising trick. Its interesting to watch Arnold's tapes because throughout the whole session his words of encouragement are almost all about the body being a machine carefully crafted and controlled by the mechanic, you.

"If it keeps up, man will atrophy all his limbs but the push-button finger.”
~Frank Lloyd Wright

This may not be a direct metaphor to humans as a technology but the finger certainly is considered part of a machine when using the adjective push-button to describe human's drive for making life simpler by advancing technology. Wright warns us here that man might get too lazy and eventually have no need for anything else but a finger to push all the buttons to take care of life for us. But what kind of life would that entail? Not a pleasant one for sure. I see a future of quadriplegic people and millions of robots and machines living life for us. Bleak indeed.

metaphors of anger

2006-04-10T06:06:00.000-07:00

Anger equals dynamite metaphor highlights the aspect that anger can explode into violent action. Another aspect is that if anger builds up it produces more violent actions later. Anger, like dynamite is hidden within the properties of itself. No one but the person enraged may know that that person will let all that emotion out at once. William’s poem A Poison Tree points out new metaphor anger equals a poisonous tree.
“I was angry with my friend; I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow.”
Anger that is stored up without being let out can be very dangerous. If someone is angry at a friend communication will ‘diffuse’ the anger. But towards a foe, anger will not be talked out and will continue to grow like a tree. The tree metaphor goes further with these words in the next stanza. “And I waterd it in fears, Night & morning with my tears” Continued thought about the situation that caused the person to get angry will let the anger flourish like water helps a tree grow. Then the tree produces a fruit obviously poisonous considering the title of the poem. The interesting aspect of William’s poem is that the foe, probably as angry as the narrator, took the fruit and ate it out of spite towards the narrator. Then the expected happens with the foe falling dead underneath the tree. Anger’s tree poisoned the foe because the more pervasive the angry thoughts enter the narrator’s mind the bigger the tree gets until it bears fruits (violent action) and causes great harm to the person.
If this anger equals poisonous tree metaphor was in use in ordinary language we might say phrases like this: “I’d like to give a fruit to Andy right now, he makes me so mad.” “That’s it, Kelly you should eat one of my fruits.” “My tree is about to bear fruit with you mister.”

writing as a technology

2006-04-05T06:16:00.000-07:00

Writing as a Technology

The standard definition of technology is
The application of science, especially to industrial or commercial objectives.
The scientific method and material used to achieve a commercial or industrial objective.
Electronic or digital products and systems considered as a group: a store specializing in office technology.
Anthropology. The body of knowledge available to a society that is of use in fashioning implements, practicing manual arts and skills, and extracting or collecting materials.
Writing is considered technology because in a sense it is a method that does solve many problems more efficiently than without it. Communication wouldn’t be the same without writing. At some point in human history writing was not around. Surely around that campfire, in that dank cave those primitive people who invented writing thought, on some level, that this method would help them communicate better. A lasting impression on a cave wall could communicate stories for the ages. The third definition seems to fit writing in there right along with manual arts and skills. The expanded form of the definition would be technology is anything that applies a new systematic technique, method or approach to solve a problem. Goody talks of the distinction between writing and oral communication in differing cultures, classes and in one’s self. He also says that one can not exist exclusively and that the two modes, oral and writing, feed off each other. Since both are outlets of creative human thought these two should be dynamic and fluent in nature. The way people talk determines how they collect and form sentences on a page. Also, in turn, the more literate a person (i.e. the more words and contexts the person is more familiar with) the easier it is for that person to converse and communicate orally.

tehcnicolor dreamworld

2006-02-15T06:03:00.000-08:00

Television: A Technicolor Dreamworld
The narrative structure of The Wizard of Oz starts out with the main character, Dorothy. Her house has been blown into a mythical world full of witches and munchkins. A good witch tells her that she must find the Wizard to take her and her little dog back to Kansas. All she has to do is follow the yellow brick road straight to the land of Oz. Along the way Dorothy makes a few friends, who are in need of something. She meets a scarecrow who needs a brain, a tin man who needs a heart and a lion who needs some courage. They run into some trouble when they encounter a wicked witch who is angry at Dorothy because her house landed on her sister, another wicked witch. They get captured and are taken to her castle. With Toto’s help they escape and kill the wicked witch. They make it to Oz and find that the Wizard is a lonely old man with little power at all. He is wise though and helps each of them by giving meaningful gifts. Lastly, he invites Dorothy to go home with him in a big air balloon, but she gets out when Toto runs away, ruining her chances of ever getting home. But miraculously the good witch comes back and tells her to click her heels three times if she ever wanted to go home. She does and wakes up back in Kansas, to find out that it was all just a dream. Many stories about people overcoming obstacles do in fact fit in the shape of the narrative of this story. The “yellow brick road” symbolizes certain inevitability for Dorothy. Her ultimate good nature and kind feeling towards everyone she meets leads her down a certain path and certainly she will find her way home. This seems to be the central moral of the story. If people are good hearted, friendly and polite enough they will find their way home. I do think that this narrative is a bit simplified though in comparison to real life biographies. Realistically, the yellow brick road is not always so plain and obvious. In Oz, you know you are on the road and you know that this road will lead to, in Dorothy and company’s case, the resolution to your problems. In life decisions made are not always the right ones even if we all are kind natured and friendly.
I think there might be a subliminal undercurrent of shedding a favorable light on watching television in The Wizard of Oz. As a metaphor, “somewhere over the rainbow” certainly could represent imagination as a way of escaping reality. And just as one can go there in an instant, one can come right back from it. This is the wonder of television. It creates a substitute, for a while, from the cruel, dull, grind that is our existence. In most cases the world we see in the TV is brighter than the black and white of reality. When we turn on the TV we are immersed in a world where problems are solved after commercial break. Thirty minutes is all someone needs to create, struggle with and solve the problems they are faced with. We are happy in this Technicolor world. This is what TV stands for in our every day lives and this is what The Wizard of Oz stands to represent and tell about this type of technology’s place in our culture.

2006-02-08T06:21:00.000-08:00

Robots, Chimps and Us

I think that we can tolerate robots to a point. Robots who think and feel for themselves are threatening because we, as humans like to think of ourselves as the most superior beings we have ever interacted with. Robots embedded with laws like Asimov’s are still untrustworthy to us and for no reason. Logic tells us that robots who have these unbreakable laws will never commit murder. But since we know human capabilities to break any law ever created, which is the reason the law was created in the first place, assumptions are made to think that robots are capable of such lawlessness as well. Look at Baley clinging to his fleeting idea that, first Daneel is not a robot and second that he is capable of committing murder. What he does not realize is that the human and robot brain are different. “A human brain or any mammalian brain cannot be completely analyzed by any mathematical disciple now known. No response can therefore be counted upon as a certainty. The robot brain is completely analyzable, or it could not be constructed. We know exactly what the responses to given stimuli must be. No robot could truly falsify answers. The thing you call falsification just simply does not exist in the robots mental horizon” (Asimov pg 180). Because of our tendency to irrationalize behavior and forget these simple logical truths, we will forever fear, like Lije, robots who threaten our superiority. We will fear, to an even greater degree, those which threaten our exclusive existence as superior beings on this planet; human-like robots.
The closer the machine looks to a human the more we perceive and therefore react to them as humans. I believe now and in the near future when robots begin to get more sophisticated, our brains will have to adapt to notice subtle details that we cannot currently pick up on, to notice the distinction between humans and robots. An example would be the eyes. There are so many muscles on and around the eye that humans can notice and through that can perceive what that person is feeling. Humor is something that robots with logic engrained into them would have a hard time processing and even harder time attempting to create. Humor is based on sarcasm and human heuristics. Sarcasm is illogical and follows no set of codes. The robot would have to throw out his logic based mind and ‘think more like a person’ in order to have humor.
In human’s ever present attempt to relate and connect to things slightly resembling human form we go so far as to treat chimpanzees and gorillas as near human or humanlike people. In essence they are almost human. Which leads me to wonder what it is that makes us human? Sophisticated communication, capacity for love and hate, and a multitude of other advanced traits only humans seem to possess are some close guesses. The tendency to anthropomorphize is engrained in our perception because we see a bit of humanity in these lower primates. They can love and hate, they can communicate and even make tools to fulfill needs. It’s fascinating to watch gorillas form families and communities even. I can’t tell you how much I want a chimpanzee of my own, but then that would be unfair to my perception of their closeness to humanity if I kept him or her locked up in a cage!

robots are inciteful

2006-02-03T13:34:00.000-08:00

Like the biblical God, man creates robots in his own image. We can stand to learn a lot about our values, cultures, human tendencies, and our way of life by comparing our soul to that of another creation, the robot. The logical, calculated analysis of the world differs from the heuristic and biased view humans have of the world. Olivaw stood up on the counter in the shoe store and calculated the risk factors on a strictly logical basis. He was programmed in the nature of humans to bend towards authority. There was no risk of bodily harm because robots do not feel as humans do and he is programmed to lay down his life if it comes to harming a human. What the robot cannot calculate is human’s reaction to this stand of authority. He has rules governing what humans do but I do not think humanity is as expectant as to adhere to laws governing behavior in any strict sense at all. At any moment in that scene someone could have challenged Olivaw’s assumed authority and where would the robot be then? The crowd would have noticed he wouldn’t shoot and he would have also been ripped to shreds. I think it would be extremely difficult to work side by side with R. Daneel Olivaw just based on the fact of reading human emotions. He does it differently and I would not bank the lives of the public or myself on it.
Tank is an interesting observation in human communication. The fact that people get excited that a being not human is talking and responding to what humans are saying to it shows that it is working. Giving him a soap opera background and emotions, to some extent, brings him closer to relating to people and reveals a lot about what humans look for in communication. There is more to talking than just communication. We detect feelings through slight inflections in voice or of the context in which someone says something. All these things have been a gift of evolution and language that robots have yet to master. I think that is the next step towards having a robot talk as a human would.
I do not add emotive pictures in my typed messages or emails because I think they are cheesy and unnecessary. If I ever did use them they would be to make fun of them or out of complete boredom. The typed word is a newer and different way of communication than voice. It’s more efficient and less emotive. The sacrifice in feeling is balanced by the ease and efficiency of the communication.

1.2

2006-01-31T21:42:00.000-08:00

Assignment 1.2
As the monster yearns for acceptance into human society he strives to learn the language of the cottagers. The monster realizes that his form is so hideous that in order to gain this acceptance from the cottagers he must first become appealing to these people in soft speech and kind feeling. “I imagined that they would be disgusted, until, by my gentle demeanor and conciliating words, I should first win their favor and afterwards their love.” The monster knows he must use language as a vehicle towards acceptance. In this instance language gives the monster hope and therefore excites him. “These thoughts exhilarated me and led me to apply with fresh ardour to acquiring the art of language.” The fact that he is so ugly has driven him to learn a possibility for overcoming such deformities and hope of human acceptance.
When the monster learns of human history and its contradictory behaviors he realizes he has none of the qualities that humans apparently appreciate and accept. He has “no money, no friends, and no kind of property.” These thoughts only drove him further on his quest for acceptance. “I admired virtue and good feelings and loved the gentle manners and amiable qualities of my cottagers, but I was completely shut out from intercourse with them, except through means which I obtained through stealth, when I was unseen and unknown, and which rather increased than satisfied the desire I had of becoming one among my fellows.” The monster now knows the language and history of humankind and with that comes the understanding that he is missing more components of humanity’s acceptance, money, friends and relations, which only further drove him to seeking out this acceptance. Although with knowledge comes pain and fear. “I cannot describe to you the agonies that these reflections inflicted upon me; I tried to dispel them, but sorrow only increased with knowledge.” He even goes on to regret leaving his wood and feeling sensation. Clearly he is a tortured soul who is in a desperate mood forced to find more fault and lacking in his essence due mainly to language and knowledge.
When the monster learns how to read books he is almost overwhelmed with the similarities he had to the human condition. But he also felt detached and by nature, alone in the world cut off from civilization as well. “I sympathized with and partly understood them but was unformed in mind; I was dependent on none and related to none.” This great conundrum is present through these pages where he learns language and writing. He doesn’t immediately turn more violent but it creates a struggle that was absent before when he was solely admiring the cottagers expressions and actions. Given this knowledge of these technologies the monster has the ability to understand humans but is ultimately frustrated and eventually maddened by the shortcomings he possesses. In his comparison to Adam the first man he relates such frustrations. Like Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence; but his state was far different from mine in every other respect.” Again this struggle with comparison is evident and the monster can only face this problem with a calm demeanor for so long. Like a powder keg this building tension will explode at any moment and was made possible by the knowledge of technologies of language and writing.

2006-01-22T20:09:00.000-08:00

Jason Chambers
Eng F108
January 20, 2006

Motives in Exploration

Walton and Frankenstein are both explorers in their own sense. Walton is the more literal form but Frankenstein, being a scientist seeking life from death, is exploring the bounds of humanity. Walton’s motives for discovering a Northwest Passage are for fame and recognition. He also hints at doing a service to humankind in his letter to Margaret. “You cannot contest the inestimable benefit which I shall confer, on all mankind, to the last generation, by discovering a passage near the pole to those countries.” Walton sees himself as an enduring hero to humanity if he should be successful in his endeavor. He also states motives of a more personal tone a few paragraphs later. “And now, dear Margaret, do I not deserve to accomplish some great purpose? My life might have been passed in ease and luxury, but I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path.” This explorer wants personal credit and fame for his life long ambition. He feels he has been slighted by putting in the hard work and devotion and not receiving the acclaim he undoubtedly deserves.
These motives ring true for Victor as well. He had devoted much of his life to chemistry, anatomy, and other sciences necessary for the creation of life and feels some great recognition from society is in order. Victor goes even further to say he deserves to become the creator of another race of life. “A new species will bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me.” Frankenstein sought to become this creator above all odds and was driven with a maddening force to accomplish his task. “With unrelaxed and breathtaking eagerness, I pursued nature to her hiding-places.” Victor is seeking not only glory and eternal recognition lasting in the hearts of countless generations but to conquer the mysteries that nature has kept secret. He represents the toiling spirit in humanity to overcome her environment and unlock all the knowledge nature holds.
Both explorers are seeking fame beyond their lifetimes. Both explorers seek to in some way triumph over nature. The mindset of both Walton and Frankenstein is that by crossing over the bounds nature has laid out for humanity they are proving to the world the worth and resilience of the human race. Shelley has intentionally made their motives alike to compare science to exploration. And like exploration, science can be treacherous. If one is on the brink of discovery a great responsibility must be recognized. Can humans be able to undertake such a responsibility? This question is still alive today in people like Bill Gates. His innovations in computer technology and business marketing has led him to be one of the wealthiest men on the planet. But if his motives were for money I would say he would be out of the game a long time ago. No, Gates would seem to be striving for what Walton and Frankenstein are after, eternal glory and recognition of their accomplishments from society.

1.1

2006-01-13T08:12:00.000-08:00

I think scientists should be limited to what they are allowed to research. There should be some kind of committee held up by the people of the world to decide if future experiments are not meant for human hands. Cloning would become a real mess if it was allowed to occur. A lot of social and moral problems arise from such discoveries. I think these science fiction writers, Shelly and Hawthorne, warn society of playing God. The outcomes in both stories are signs of this. I think Hawthorne does not say to limit research but to merely have scientists be more careful in their proceedings. The last line states “The momentary circumstance was too strong for him; he failed to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once for all in eternity, to find the perfect future in the present.” He was too hasty in making his tonic. Such elixirs are not meant for his hands. His means were good but his timing was bad. He should have had other scientists check his work out to see if it would have any lethal properties. As for Frankenstein, Shelley is warning us to stay away from creating man that is God’s job and his alone. The function of a storyteller is to be open to all fronts and raise ethical questions to seek and destroy such killer cats as playing God and elixirs of life.

2006-01-12T10:01:00.000-08:00

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