What does Montag mean by an "illusion of autonomy" (469)?
470:
Why is the absence of the French Revolution in Frankenstein
surprising?
Why is sympathy for Charles I in Frankenstein surprising?
Explain
how the quoted passage demonstrates this sympathy.
471:
Who were the new elites?
Why, according to Montag, were the new elites " forced to
mobilize the plebian masses" (471)?
Explain: "The mass mobilizations necessary to destroy
the old
world order effectively blocked the creation of the new"
(471).
Why, according to Montag, did the newly created working
class resist
industrialization?
Who were the Luddites?
473:
In what ways, according to Montag, does Frankenstein's
monster become identified with the
proletariat?
Explain: "The very logic of capitalism has produced
the means
of its own destruction" (473).
474:
Why is it "too simple" to say that "the monster equals the
proletariat"
(474)?
Explain: "We do not leave the work in search of its
historical
meaning but seek the meaning of its historical existence
within it" (474).
475:
Why is a text's historicity "inescapably . . . present in the
form of
a conflict" (475)?
Explain: "Frankenstein has been the instrument of
science" (475).
476:
Explain: "Scientific and technological progress . . .
introduces
separateness, division, and antagonism into the social world"
(476).
What is the difference between production and creation?
477:
Why, according to Montag, is it important that the actual
process of creation in Frankenstein
is not discussed?
Explain: "Technology and science, so central to the novel,
are present
only in their effects" (477).
478:
How does clothing the scientific in theological terms allow
the narrative
to protect "itself from the reality that it describes by
casting a veil
over that reality" (478)?
479:
Explain: "He is the sole embodiment of the industrial
in an otherwise
rural world" (479). Who is "he"?
480:
Explain: "Frankenstein's monster is finally not
identified with
the working class of Mary Shelley's time but with its absence"
(480).
To what time, according to Montag, does this text "turn
backward" (480)?
Why?
