For my project, I delve into the relationships of Victor and the Monster as well as the relationships Victor shares with other characters that were underdeveloped within the original novel by Mary Shelley in the novel Franeknstein. I examine their relationships in two components. The first through my own interpretation of Victor and the Monster’s relationship within a creative writing piece that extends the novel as if Victor had lived rather than died in the arctic in order to explore the possibilities of a more complex set of relationships between Victor and the Monster than simply creator-creation. My writing focuses on the development of their relationship once all they have left is each other. The second part of my project focuses on an analytical component. I analyze and cite the reasoning for my creative take on Victor and the Monster as well as their relationship within the novel and Mary Shelley’s intentions.
William Blake posits that without contraries, there will be no progress. The concepts of Heaven and Hell are originally used to represent the contrary of reason and energy, but it is also appropriate to represent Heaven and Hell in terms of order and entropy. This newly proposed contrary relies on the application of entropic brain theory, which states that normal, waking consciousness (secondary consciousness) has decreased entropy relative to primary consciousness. It is argued that Blake uses the concept of Hell to promote the use of psychedelics in order to progress human life by informing the surrounding world that the body limits human perception of the surroundings. This indirectly advocates for an increase in entropy in the brain because psychedelics induce a higher repertoire of functional connectivity motifs that allow for the dissolution of the “self” to help remove the doors of perception and reveal the infinite. Additionally, it is determined that Blake uses the contrary of entropy and order, which is representative of Hell and Heaven, to predict the impending wave of liberty/revolution (progress) in England.