"Never Wrong But Not Always Right?"
-Jorge A. Martinez
Over the Course of this semester, I was assigned to do many different essays to show my writing potential. Along with these essays, I also had to do blogs and partake in discussions base off the course material. The goal of this class was to develop my writing skills through these assignments and I have completed that objective.
My first essay of this class what on the subject of critical thinking. Before doing the actual writing assignment the class read articles and essays having to do with this topic. The authors of these writings were Carl Sagan, bell hooks, Francis Bacon, and John Dewey. The prompt for my essay is: To what extent does society contribute to the erosion of critical thinking skills?
First Essay:
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Second Essay:
Another essay that I would like to display is an argumentative research essay. This research essay was tided to our class finishing the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and questioning ethics and science. Before starting to work on this essay we were required to read two essays on the subject of ethics and morality. These essays are, "Morality as Anti-Nature" by Frederick Nietzsche and "Toward a Universal Ethics" by Michael Gazzinga. The prompt I had pick is: Debate the ethics of a specific, recent technology or scientific discovery. Consider how this discovery fits into the definitions of ethics and morality as defined by Appiah, Kant, Aristotle, or Gazzaniga. To what extent is this discovery a virtuous one?
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Other assignements:
During this course we had to partcipate in class discusions and based it off what we have been exercising in class. For this discussion we focusing on argumentation strategies and rhetorical appeal of the creature in the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. In response to the following prompt:
1. First review the Creature's defense as he narrates his story in Volume II (Chapters 2-9 pp.65-105). Make sure to examine the reliability of the narrator and to take into account all appeals to logos, ethos, and pathos. What kinds of unfair emotional appeals does he make? What logical fallacies? Does he use straw man fallacy? Study your handbook for clarification.
2. How you would respond to his case: Home Confinement (Remand him to the care of his benefactor and creator), Dismissal (dismiss all charges), Acquittal (find him not guilty), Probation (rehabilitation rather than punishment),Conviction (guilty and sentenced to prison or death).
3. Would you agree to his request to create a bride for him? Why (not)?
1. In volume two, the creature explains his back story to Victor Frankenstein. He talked about how he had grown overly attached to the cottagers because he had learned a lot from them. When he confronted the cottagers, it was followed with them rejecting the creature. His appeal most strongly emotional and some logical. His logical appeal came from him helping humans but still be constantly rejected and treated like a monster. But it also raises the question of why he would make himself look bad in his own story?
2. I would have to send him to probation but this was a very borderline decision. You can't kill people just because they are ungrateful for your acts of kindness or abandoning you in your time of need. It is just not moral. But I do believe that the creature will be able to change because he shows he knows the difference of moral and immoral acts. This is all due because of the limited human interaction he has had, he was not able to judge at that moment what is moral and immoral.
3. I would agree to create his bride because he is requesting the need to be understood by someone. It would be immoral for me to deny someone of that liberty. Another reason is that if I was Victor, I won't want all of my family to be killed by my creation.
Additionally, during this course we were also required to do blog post which is very similar to the discussions but it was a more developed responses on the blog posts. Blog post were mostly based on our reading and text analysis. For example, in one blog assignment we would have to define whether Victor Frankenstein in the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley has expressed characteristics of a protagonist or an antagonist. Using what we had learned on character analysis to write the blog assignment and respond to our prompt:
1. What are his heroic qualities? What are his anti-heroic or villainous qualities? Is he a sympathetic character? Is he a reliable narrator? What internal and external conflicts does he battle? How does he evolve as a character throughout this volume?
Victor Frankenstein is considered the “protagonist” of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. But upon reading the book you get to explore who Victor Frankenstein is and what he is like. Victor expresses both characteristics of a hero and anti-hero throughout volume one. His characteristics are changed and affected by the conflicts that he is facing. In volume one of the book Victor Frankenstein evolve from anti-heroic characteristics to heroic characteristics.
Victor Frankenstein went through events that led to a change in his characteristics. Victor first went away from home to pursue his academic goals in alchemy. During his studies, Victor starts to conduct his project to reanimate a dead body back to life with the help of his early childhood obsession electricity. Victor then devoted all his time and effort to completing his dream project only to find out that he had made a grave mistake. Victor did successful reanimate the body, but he didn’t like his own creation and was scared of it. With Victor becoming very ill and the creature that has gone missing, the problems of Victor continue to escalate as he receives news that his young brother William was murdered. Victor is then forced to go back home to Geneva to find out that William’s murder is Victor’s own creation and Justine is being framed for it. These events are what changed Victor’s characteristics throughout volume one.
During the beginning of the volume one of the book, Victor Frankenstein has anti-heroic characteristics. When Victor is first doing his project he shows these characteristics. “”Is that all? my dear Henry. How could you suppose that my first thought would not fly towards those dear, dear friends whom I love, and who are so deserving of my love?”” (Frankenstein P. 40). In this quote, Frankenstein is responding to his friend, Henry Clerval, about the lack of responses that Frankenstein is been having with his family. Frankenstein’s comment is saying that he doesn’t really care about that as much as his creation. Victor isn’t worried about the things his family is trying to tell him or does it matter that his family is reaching out as much as they are trying to. This shows a lack of empathy with Frankenstein’s character which is a classic anti-hero characteristic.
However, Victor Frankenstein shows heroic characteristics after reading the letters that his family sends him. During the time of William’s death, Victor shows much sympathy towards his family members and notices how important it was to them for him to go. “At first I wished to hurry on, for I longed to console and sympathize with my loved and sorrowing friends…” (Frankenstein P. 48). He shows his concern toward the family’s feelings and what they are going through. He expresses a heroic characteristic by doing so. Frankenstein after this expresses emotions with families and wishes to help them in their time of need.
In conclusion, depending on the events that Victor Frankenstein goes through changes his characteristics from heroic to anti-heroic. Victor is a very dynamic character because of this and shows through his actions and responses. However, sometimes Victor seems to lean more toward the anti-heroic side in the later chapters of the books. And the cause for such changes are in the events or problems he faces.
You can find more blog posts like this one under the blog tab.