Lipking Questions

Lawrence Lipking
"Frankenstein, the True Story; or Rousseau Judges Jean-Jacques"

** Homework Questions **

Who is Lipking's audience?

What is his main argument?

416:

Why, according to Lipking, is Frankenstein suited for a "free-for-all" of interpretations in which "Anything goes"(416)?

418:

Explain: "The object of the debate is not to prove or refute or win but only to take part, translating the novel into one's own discourse" (418).

419:

Explain: "On this level of insight, contraries can be equally true, and fierce debate need not exclude consensus" (419).
Explain: "Understanding a plot precedes interpretation, rather than being itself an interpretive construction of the text" (419).

424-34:

How well does Lipking practice what he preaches? Explain.
How well does Lipking use quotes to support his argument? Provide an example.

424:

What work does Lipking suggest has the greatest influence on Frankenstein?

427-28:

How, according to Lipking, have Walton, Victor, and the Creature each been mis-educated?

Other Discussion Questions:
417:

How, according to Lipking, does Frankenstein bend the traditional canon? What does that mean?
Explain: "If poststructuralist theory has taught us any lesson, it is that convictions about the indeterminacy and undecidability of all texts do nothing to stem the effort to find unique and compelling readings" (417).

420:
Things to Consider:

Item:

Frankenstein is the degenerate offspring of a dysfunctional family.
Walton and Frankenstein are unreliable narrators.
It is impossible to believe F's story of how he discovered the secret.
The Creature is a natural man.
F's abandonment of his Creature is an unforgivable irresponsibility.
F's incredible stupidity, narcissism, and insensitivity to women lead to the death of his bride on their wedding night.

Not Worth Mentioning:

Every character in the book loves and admires him.
The Creature is an unreliable narrator.
It is impossible to believe the Creature's story of how he acquired language.
The Creature is an unnatural botch of a man.
The Creature murders a small child and frames an innocent woman for the crime.
The Creature kills that bride for no other reason but to get back at Frankenstein.

Explain: "Despite the consensus of sophisticated critics, ordinary readers keep looking at the wrong evidence and coming to the wrong conclusions" (420). What, according to Lipking, is the "wrong" evidence?

421:
Mellor's Questions:

Is the Creature good or evil?
Is he innately so? Or does he become so?
If he becomes so, what causes this change?

422:

Explain what Lipking says about Sesame Street and the Special Olympics. Why does it "not have much to do with the novel that Mary Shelley wrote" (422)?
Explain: "Frankenstein does not admit a resolution" (422).

423:

Explain: "Love of the Other and fear of the Other, however logically incompatible, can be equally well motivated, and . . . idealism can be selfish and destructive as well as altruistic and creative" (423).

423-24:

Explain: "But what many critics define as an attack on the assumptions of Romanticism might equally be defined as the Romantic mainstream" (423-24).

425:

What does "adumbrate" mean?
What, according to Lipking, are the two most powerful feats of the novel?

426:

Explain: "What nature creates, and civilization deforms, a renewed attention to nature can restore" (426).
How is Frankenstein a "thought-experiment"(426)?

427:

Explain: "Shelley herself was obsessed by the need to repair her own lack of instruction" (427).

428:

Explain: "Put simply, the Creature is just too good" (428). How is this so?

429:

Explain: Frankenstein "shows us that everything has gone wrong, and leaves us to search for reasons" (429).
What is a "self-deconstructing author" (429)?

430:

Explain: "Idealism destroys content" (430).
How does the Creature resemble Rousseau?
Explain: "Much as I might like to, I cannot . . . tell you what has gone wrong with life, and neither can the novel" (430).

432:

Explain: "The identification of the Creature with the spirit of the mountain, as well as the Creature's mastery of the landscape where mere human beings cannot survive, underlines the futility of trying to draw comfort or companionship from something as cold and indifferent as nature" (432).
Explain: "Frankenstein's fault was not ambition but his failure to look on his work and find it good" (432). Does Lipking believe this?

433:

Explain: "Indeed the capacity for arguing both sides of a question, or for providing material to undermine its own first premises, accounts for much of the fascination--as well as the terror--of Frankenstein" (433).

434:

Explain: "I hope that you will not agree with me too much" (434).

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