Introduction
Are we, as human beings, formed by "nature" or "nurture" or both? I ask this question at the beginning of our Frankenstein unit in order to get my students thinking about our roles in this world and our accountability (or lack thereof) for our actions and the resulting consequences. With high school seniors, these questions are even more imperative since these young folks are on the brink of graduating and exiting the routine, expected, predictable lives of adolescence to be thrust into the "real" world of the unknown and the uncertain.
The common response my students have to our unit on Frankenstein comes directly from cultural references: "Frankenstein is the green monster right?" "We're gonna be reading about the guy who is ginormous with bolts in his neck!" "Oh yeah...I've had Frankenberry cereal!" My students are soon informed that "Frankenstein" is actually the name of the creator/scientist, and his creation remains nameless, being referred to only as "creature" and "demon," although there are quite a few parallels between the creator and the created. It is this very question of identity that will drive this unit in attempting to show students the harmful and dangerous impact that assumptions and prejudice can have on students who are seen as the "other," the "unknown," or the "different." While students initially view the "creature" as some grotesque, raging, violent, deranged killer, their assumption is shattered once they begin to discover the circumstances of the creature's 'birth" and its first exposure to the world. This "newborn" experience is a far cry from what my students are accustomed to when thinking about Victor Frankenstein's "creature."
To set the stage for Shelley's novel, I introduce my students to the life into which Mary Shelley was born, her personal struggles, her difficulties with her relationships, and her longstanding shadow of pain and suffering. While the novel may be written at a time and in a style foreign to modern day teenagers, the plight of the creature/creator is all too familiar to them. While we don't have this fictional eight-foot tall, grotesque, incomprehensible creature roaming in our society today, we do have individuals who step onto our high school campus (and society) feeling this disowned, this displaced, and this ostracized because they are somehow "different."
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