College Showcase

I attend Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas, TX and every November we do this thing where we all get our best work together in a neat, self-contained unit and show it to a menagerie of art colleges who come down to our school to see us and to see our work. It's a really interesting experience because we are allowed the opportunity to get individual feedback from people who can objectively critique our work. So it's really, really nice when a college recruiter is pleased with what I have to offer because it's a small indication that I've been doing something right for the past four years. I was really happy with the feedback I received from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA; the recruiter was really enthralled with the amount of detail in my work and the effort that went into creating each piece. He explained that the school has an academic partnership with Tufts University that he would certaintly direct me towards because he thought my art was "fantastic" and he was impressed also that I was first in the class. He worked with me to try to understand how, and if at all, I want art to fit into the context of my college life and I was incredibly happy with his willingness to talk with me despite my lack of interest in pursuing a career in the art.
Texas Christian University, which may even be the possesive "Christian's" though I don't really care to go all the way down to Google and look it up as they didn't care to walk the hundred-mile trek to the gallery to see my pieces. They acted as if they had to cross the Rubicon or something, so all I got was some literature about how caring of a school they are. But the guy behind the table had a shirt with bigfoot on it so, that was at least mildly pleasurable if only for a brief moment.
The lady from El Centro College walked with me to the gallery and she immediately shut-down after I told her that I wanted to major in neurobiology, and I saw that they had little squishy stress balls on their table that were shaped like brains and she didn't even give me one. I contemplated going back up there and taking one but I would've had to wait in line again and I was in no mood. No one wants to go to your school.
The last college table I visited was the School of Sante Fe Arts? Or the Art School of Sante Fe? But the man behind the counter was in serious need of some rudimentary social skills. I asked him if he would be so kind as to walk down to the gallery with me and he said "No, just let me see your work". "Well, it's in the gallery. Our teachers told us to take you down there," I retorted. He scoffed and puffed some air out of the side of his mouth, "You didn't even bring your work? Well talk to me about it then, I went down in the gallery, I'll remember it." And as his request sounded more like a prompt to describe the aesthetics of my work in order to jog his memory, it clearly wasn't, because he stopped me mid-sentence, "What do you want to major in?". "Uh, neurobiology?", and he chuckled with that sarcastic I-am-so-above-you-right-now-even-though-you-are-clearly-displaying-a-higher-level-of-intellect-than-I-am chuckle. "Um, neuro-what? Most of our professors can't even say that, no we don't have that. Uh, I don't know how to break it to you, but, this is an art school."
So all in all, showcase was a waste of time save for the one man from Boston who actually treated me like a human being. It was a waste of my time, it was a waste of their time, and the only purpose I really served was to make the lines longer for people who actually want to go to art school. But then I got to go home, and I wasn't as angry anymore.

Romantic Values in Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN

          The narrative established in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein embodies the thematic conventions of the Romanticism movement of European society in the late 19^th century. Apart from general qualities, such as a plot central to emotionally raw awe and horror, the narrative maintains a commentary or subtext that criticizes a revolution of scientific ideals in contemporary society as a result of the Enlightenment Era. With an increase in scientific emphasis, Romanticists often attempted to reject and defy the objectification of nature under empirical sciences, which were attributed to the oversimplification and degradation of natural beauty. This is demonstrated by Victor Frankenstein’s early evolution of interest as he maintains a visceral appreciation for the application of natural elements which is later devolved and adulterated by a pursuance of the scientific method which promotes a moral downfall. The narrative associates a type of evil mysticism and supernaturalism to the art of science as if it were a fallible and unfounded power, a pagan religion, which only converts the world-weary man into the troubled man.

            This representation of all experimental and empirical methods as an unreliable form of pseudoscientific pursuit is matched by the field of alchemy. Alchemy represents a perfect embodiment of the scientific criticisms of the Romantic movement. The object of alchemy is entirely unattainable, thus an indulgence in its practice would reflect the presumption of the ability to achieve the impossible-again a reference emphasizing the thematic recurrence of man’s hubris. Alchemy also maintains a negative connotation, associated with witchcraft and an intensely rudimentary demonic spirituality.

            Romanticists believed that the innocence of childhood, as paralleled by Victor’s early interest in the natural world, was to be later diluted and corrupted by cultural and societal conventions; in the 1800s social hierarchy was integral. An increased elevation in the hierarchal scale suggested a less primitive and rural familiarity with nature, thus it would exemplify a match to divine power over nature which for Romanticists was a demented status. Victor Frankenstein’s access to scientific literature demonstrates the ease of corruption with regards to status in the higher class. Thus science is automatically paralleled with false godhood.

Tragedy and Death in Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN

           Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein presents the circumstance in which death is an ultimate catharsis to a faulted creation. It revisits the idea that death, in its peaceful and silent method, is entirely promoted by the natural world and that death is not necessarily a relief from life, but rather a final sacrifice that one with life owes to its creator in returning to the endless naught. It is the cyclical conventionality of nature to present life with death; however, Victor Frankenstein has indulged in the hubris of assuming the position of an imperfect God, and while robbed of true deistic power, he chooses still to promote life which inevitably will end, and has ended, with this life, his creation, ironically choosing death. There is a literary paradox formed in the manner in which humans commemorate or emphasize death and the subtle and repressed nature with which death consumes the monster. There is an incredibly passive yet relieving value to the death of Frankenstein’s monster; it alludes to the birth of Biblical Adam in Paradise lost, from clay to ashes, as if in life the magnitude of death is entirely reduced. This contradicts with Romantic values, the recognition of life as nature’s gift and presents the idea that, in science’s attempts to reinvent human life, there is a consequence of absence, of some missing visceral quality which awards meaning to life. This is literally represented when considering the deaths that Victor has inadvertently created as opposed to the singular and solitary life he has so proudly crafted.

            There is almost a bitter irony in the death of the monster, there is no satisfaction felt by the reader but rather a lasting and surprising empathy; it is a diatribe on the wavering frailty of human emotions. Though the monster has murdered it is through sympathy and understanding of the human condition which begs love and friendship that it is recognized that Victor is the unlikely antagonist. This fickle quality of human allegiance is an active reason why humans, when plagued with hubris, make faulted Gods.

Foreshadowing and the Death of Henry Clerval in Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN

The narrative of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein develops an embodiment of a central Romantic theme and intent through the foreshadowing of anti-hero Henry Clerval’s death by Victor Frankenstein’s  monster,  his creation, and a relation to the destruction of the admiration of the natural world by a vain and uncontrollable scientific endeavor. Henry Clerval, within the novel, represents the anti-hero, the remaining innocence of Victor Frankenstein in his capacity to appreciate, understand, and fall ill to the majesty of nature (represented as deistic by Romantic values). This suggests that the ability to interpret nature is a celebrated naivety, like that in the innocence and unadulterated virtue of a child, that is killed (in the novel literally) by Frankenstein’s assumption of an imperfect god in creating his monster.

            It is consistent with the faults of hubris the deaths of Victor’s loved ones, and while it is implied in the narrative that Elizabeth means the greatest deal to Victor, it is better supported that Clerval is an intrinsic and visceral part of Victor that is distinct and tangible. With Clerval’s death, the last innocence of Victor and the portion of his soul to which salvation can ever cling is completely lost. There is an emphasis on the abysmal solitude that is inherent to scientific discovery, ironically. There is a complete contrast between the modern enlightenment and illumination associated with scientific progress and the abysmal and suffocating social and emotional darkness that surrounds both Victor Frankenstein and his creation.

            Foreshadowing with respect to the death of Clerval is accomplished through a projected irony in which it is contrasted Clerval’s exuberance and indulgence in life, “now I enjoy existence!” and the implications of his death  by his best friend’s hand. Frankenstein’s guilt is also apparent as it breaks from the framed story within the narrative; thus guilt would imply the indirect fault of Victor in his friend’s destruction, it is as though he has realized his crimes against nature.

Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN and Samuel Coleridge's RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

In Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, protagonist Victor Frankenstein employs a narrative which parallels that, both in action and in consequence, of the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by poet Samuel Coleridge in its striking Romantic themes and its use of creation as a representation of inherent human responsibility and the likeness between oneself and one’s actions. “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” recounts the actions of hubris of an old and weary sailor who casts an albatross from the sky and is later haunted by the subsequent deaths of his crewmembers. This theme is visited in Frankenstein through the confrontation between Frankenstein’s monster and his creator, in which it is recognized the responsibility that Victor maintains to love that to which he has given life. His visceral emotions of abhorrence represent his fragility and inability to do reciprocate the nurture owed to his creature, and thus, in keeping with Romantic values, would emphasize that the animalistic qualities of man, such as hatred and fear, render the human an incapable creator with respect to the ideal might of nature. In “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, the similarities between love and creation are evident; the Mariner urges that all manner of man and beast that nature has ideally created should be loved and valued as equal, suggesting that it is only when man tries to overcome his natural order that the balance between life and death, or creation and destruction is compromised. This is too exemplified in Frankenstein’s monster’s daunting ultimatum: love in life, or death.

            Victor Frankenstein and the Ancient Mariner are too similar in the method of distancing themselves from the consequences of their actions (rationalization) until they are forced to recognize the magnitude of promoting life (Frankenstein) or death (“Rime of the Ancient Mariner”) by their respective hands. In both narratives the realization (peripeteia) is within the deaths of friends and family; and each subsequent death bears a greater weight. Death is also visited as an unnatural animation; life-in-death mirrors the curse of an arrested sleep and signifies the naturality and peace of true death, and further emphasizes the unnatural ability of man to play God under science. The grandeur of the natural world in both narratives further projects the encompassing might of nature as the determinant of fate, and heightens its role as a deity. In both narratives, the main characters are arrested in their grief; however, Frankenstein finds peace in his solidarity, while the Mariner is imprisoned by his solitude. There is a distinct morality within both narratives; they are informally didactic.

A Poem About Autumn

Filtered light floods the streets
As if in time it knows it will catch up to
The quickly evading summer
But to no avail it clings to every modicum
Of fallen life, of red litters of cackling and
Cracked leafs like broken artifacts
From the legacy of a former heat

The catharsis of a sudden breath of
Wind, cold from the deepest recesses
Of Earthen lungs
But to no avail the trials of winter try
To match the welcome chill
With too headstrong a violent gust

How subdued and dignified the Autumn seems
When framed by the most bearing conditions
But to no avail the seasons cycle
Caught in the framework of an everlasting
Will, which brings upon the passing of time
The passing of tranquility
An ephemerality lost forever to the
Mechanisms of rotation in an infinite space

How small the Autumn makes me feel.