Chapter 1 (Part 1)
In this chapter the main protagonist, who we later find out is Victor Frankenstein, tells the story of his childhood to Walton an acquaintance that Victor just met. This is a critical moment in the story of Frankenstein as it sets up the motifs and reasons as to why he was interested in pursuing what he did. The back story was a bit confusing to me in terms of all the character interactions, so I felt that the Gantt chart was the best way to visualize the data of these character interactions. Although the dates are a bit arbitrary, the main data in terms of characters, order of events and approximate length of events as explained are upheld using the Gantt Chart Data visualization. For additional clarification, I added annotations at key moments in the sequence of events to provide a clearer explanation for the user when looking at this visualization. An additional key point is the introduction of the ideals of natural philosophy, this was introduced around the time Victor Frankenstein (the protagonist) got married. Ultimately, the way Victor Frankenstein’s domestic friend circle came to be seems a bit unorthodox and wrought with loss, however he describes it as ideal.
*Victor Frankenstein’s father is Alphonso Frankenstein, and Protagonist Brother encompasses all his brothers.
*Victor’s mother dies when Elizabeth and Victor marry
Chapter 1 (Part 2)
For this section, the reader is exposed to the development of Victor Frankenstein social circle. This social circle consisting of Henry Clerval, and Elizabeth was one that flourished and allowed Victor to dive into natural world philosophies found in books by Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, and Albertus Magnus. As Victor’s interest in natural philosophy increased, he was using it to explain worldly phenomena’s such as lightning and thunder. One occasion where a tree was destroyed by lightning, in an attempt to release the grip natural philosophy had on Victor’s mind, his father explained lightning using modern scientific principles at the time. Ultimately, the explanation loosened the grip natural philosophy had on Victors mind, but he was still intrigued by the study. The data visualization tool I used was a cluster bar chart. The intention is to identify key words that Victor Frankenstein uses to describe the influences on his development throughout the chapters, focusing especially on the first 2 chapters. With this visualization is can be seen that early on in his development in chapters 1 and 2, Victor is heavily influenced by principles found in Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, and Albertus Magnus. Additionally his interest in natural philosophy is clearly seen based on how many times he mentions it. The other words I added were to show the opposition to his developing ideas on Natural philosophy. From the data, it is clear that there wasn’t a lot of negatives that prevented him from pursuing his interest in Natural philosophy.
Chapter 2
In this chapter, Victor Frankenstein is urged by his father to pursue his studies in Natural philosophy over at the University of Ingolstadt. Just as Victor was about to leave, his mother catches scarlet fever and dies which leaves Elizabeth, Victor and the rest of their family to grieve over her death. Upon arriving at the university and attending his classes, he meets two different professors. One of is professors is Mr. Krempe who says that victor has been wasting his time studying non-modern natural philosophers. Later on, he attends a chemistry lecture taught by Mr. Waldman that encourages him to continue his studies of the sciences and natural philosophy. Upon reading this chapter I feel as if the best way to describe Victors journey would be through the use of the text to image generator. The summary text I used is the one shown above.
Chapter 3
In this Chapter, Victor is spurred on to continue his studies after encouragement by Mr. Kremp. At this time period, he then fully devotes himself to his studies trying to learn as much as he can. With his cheeks often going pale after lengthy study sessions. After mastering all that his teachers taught him, he studies even harder and discovers how life works. Upon this discovery, he gets fully enveloped in his mission of providing life to an inanimate creation that he is building. Ultimately, he succeeds at the cost of isolation and fading family relationships. A data visualization tool I found to be appropriate to this chapter was the S-diagram. The S-diagram allows the reader to see Victor’s descent into his studies and his obsession with bringing life to an inanimate being. Further to fill out the visualization, I added words to describe his dedication over time. These words range from an initial curiosity and builds all the way to a full out devotion to his craft.
Chapter 4
After tirelessly working day and night, Victor Frankenstein brings life to his creation. Upon the waking of his creation Victor actually becomes disgusted and horrified with what he made and rushes back to his room to be with his thoughts. Victor spends the night in his room haunted by his thoughts and eventually wakes up to the monster hovering over him. Now frightened, Victor quickly leaves to walk the town and avoid the monster at all costs. While walking the town, Victor reconnects with Henry Clerval who just arrived to study at the University of Ingolstadt. Victor returns to his apartment with Henry and is relieved that there was no sign of the monster however he is hit with the realization and shock that he created a monster and falls ill for months. Victor regains his health with the help of Henry, and receives a letter from Elizabeth. The Data visualization tool I used was a word cloud courtesy of Voyant tools. With this image the user can see the words that produced the most impact on the chapter based on the frequency at which they appear at. It can be seen that there was feelings of joy once the monster was created, and shortly after horror. More importantly the user can see the importance of time in the middle of the image as victor reflects on the time spent to create his monster.
Chapter 5
Within the letter that Elizabeth wrote, she expresses the uneasiness that she and the whole family has felt about his health, and further compels him to write to his family to put their minds at ease. Further Elizabeth goes on to tell Victor about a girl named Justine Moritz who used to live with the Frankenstein family has returned to their home after the death of her mother. As time passes, Victors health recovers. During this time any sighting of material that reminds Victor of his creation torments him. Further in an effort to uplift their spirits, Henry and Victor take in the beauty of nature by taking a walk through the country side. The data visualization tool I used, is a mix between a histogram and a line chart. Within this tool the text form is broken down into several segments and scanned for high frequency words. In this case the important words are shown on top of the image, as this is an image that represents the introduction of Justine, as seen in the front portion of the chart, followed by the introduction of Clerval to his professors and nature walks with Henry as seen in the last half of the chart.
Chapter 6
After the walk-through nature with Henry, Victor comes home to a letter from his father. The contents of the letter further saddened Victor. It was a letter amount the death of his youngest brother. Upon receiving the news, Victor quickly left to travel back to his family. Once he arrives it is so late that the gates to his home has been shut. He then spends the night walking the town and happens upon the spot where his brother’s body was found. At that spot he spies the monster lurking around and becomes convinced that the monster he created killed his brother. However the next day when he comes home, Justine has been accused of the murder of Victor’s brother, simply because there was a picture of Victor’s mother found on Justine that was last in Victor’s brother’s possession. Knowing that Justine is innocent, Victor cannot explain the situation as he believes that he would be seen as insane and expose his involvement in creating the monster. In creating a data visualization for this chapter, I created a scatter plot once again based on the frequency of words. This time the frequencies are categorized and binned allowing the user to see at different stages, how the words flow and how much they are used. Ultimately the focus on the discovery of the death and all that is associated with it is shown as concentrated data points on the (0.5, 0.3) bin frequency ranges.
Chapter 7
Justine goes on to tell Elizabeth and Victor that she is innocent but confesses to the crime. Justine was then executed shortly after confessing and Victor becomes wrought with guilt knowing the true situation. In an attempt to represent this chapter I made a clustering visualization. In this visualization the main topics are highlighted in blue and is supported by their connections to the words around it. The important thing in this visualization is how close the words “Justine” and “innocence” are. This physically shows how close Justine was to innocence but based on the situation she is tied to indignation and forced to acquit. The visualization also shows the role Elizabeth played as her confidant and the words that her name is tied to which characterizes her role.
Volume 2
Chapter 1
Feeling increasingly guilty and spiraling into perpetual depression after Justine’s execution, Victor tries to find consolation alone. He considers suicide by drowning himself in the lake but restrains himself by thinking of Elizabeth, his father and his surviving brother. Unfortunately, the remorse he has overshadows every positive and hopeful emotion. His own creation becomes his bane of existence. In this chapter, Elizabeth is also sad and depressed following the death of William and Justine. After a conversation with Elizabeth, Victor considers himself to be the murdered in effect. Elizabeth, unable to empathise with victor treats his agony as countenance ad tries to help him overcome his depression using kind words. Alphonse, trying to uplift Victor’s depressed attitude, takes his children on an excursion to the valley of Chamounix. Fine weather and spectacular scenery of their family home momentarily helps Victor’s sadness, but shortly after he retreats to his depression.
Victor’s remorse leading to depression is the leading concept of this chapter. There is another side to his character that is much kinder, that loving side is a result of his love for the family. In an effort to make a visual representation of Victor’s conflicting emotions and where his emotions lead him, I made an Alluvial Diagram using rawgraphs. The diagram shows the evolution of his emotions and link elements of the same categories.
Chapter 2
The magnificent beauty of the Chamounix valley elevated Victor’s soul, but one rainy day Victors old feelings of gloom an despair re-emerges in conjunction with the gloomy weather. He decides to go alone to the summit of Montanvert. Hoping that the view of the summit in all of its natural beauty will help erase his depression as it did before. After reaching the summit, his mood is momentarily revived by the sublime scenary. As he crosses to the opposite side of Montanvert, he notices a figure of a man creature advancing toward him at a superhuman speed. As the creature approaches nearer, Victor recognizes that the creature is the monster he created. Angry and full of hatred, Victor attacks the monster, but it eludes Victor effortlessly. Victor curses the monster and tells him to leave, but the monster, speaking articulately, tells Victor that it is nothing but his creation. The monster requests Victor to accompany him to a fire in an ice cave. Victor feels the duties of a creator and agrees to its request. In the cave, the monster starts to tell Victor its life’s story.
To visually represent this chapter, I have decided to use the Voyant tool – bubbles to represent the relative frequency of the words used in this chapter. The larger the bubble the more frequently the word us used in the text.
Looking at the visual above, it is clear that the key words of this chapter are frequently used. For example – creature, ice, man, listen etc.
Chapter 3 & 4
The main focus of this chapter is the monster and his journey. The monster tells Victor about its journey upon being created. It describes its escape from Victor’s apartment into the forest. He experiences day and night, dark and light, cold and heat, and hunger. Its tale of misery and abandonment allows us to see his human qualities and we gradually start to see the monster as a whole entity. Gradually it starts to recognize and distinguish insects, herbs, and different sounds. Its greatest discovery has been fire. One day it discovers fire left by some beggars and is delighted at its warmth. But the monster burns himself when it tries to find the same pleasant warmth in live embers. It realizes that it can keep the fire alive by adding wood branches. Fire was its source of light and heat and also made its food tastier. The monster then finds shelter. Upon entering into the shelter, his presence causes an old man to run away in fear. Then it goes to a village, where more people flee at its sight. As a result of these incidents, it decides to stay away from humans. One night the monster takes shelter in a small hovel adjacent to a cottage. In the morning, it realizes that he can see into the cottage through a crack in the wall. He sees that the occupants are a young man, a young woman, and an old man. It is pleased to watch his human neighbors. It watched their various activities that it didn’t understand and never lost interest.
In chapter 4, observing his neighbors, the monster wants to join his neighbors, but it hesitates because its appearance will frighten them. The young man works outside whereas the woman is described as a homemaker. The monster notices that they often seem miserable. It wonders how the family can be miserable when they seem to have everything but eventually realizes that their misery comes from poverty. The monster has been stealing from their garden at night but when it realizes that it has been adding to their poverty, it stops stealing their food and does what he can to lessen their hardship such as collecting wood at night to leave at the door for their use. At this point the monster seems almost human and its kindness is palpable. Its guilt consciousness resonates with that of humans. The monster starts to understand the concept of a language as a method of communication by observing its neighbors. It learns the names of the young man and woman, Felix and Agatha. When the monster compares his manmade form to the graceful form of its neighbors, it considers itself ugly and it is terrified. As one month roll into the next, the monster starts liking his neighbors more and more. It spends its entire winter in the hovel, unobserved, but it continues to observe the three people.
In order to visually represent this chapter, I have decided to do a Circle packing using raw graphs app. Nested circles shows hierarchies and compares the frequencies of the word. The centered words are cottagers and day which are the two most important key factors in this chapter. The cottagers are significant because by observing them, the monster learns about humans.
Chapter 5 & 6
With the arrival of spring, the weather becomes better and brighter. The monster feels delighted by the fine weather. But it notices that Felix is sad. A beautiful woman in a dark dress and veil, accompanied by countrymen arrives at the cottage on horseback and asks to see Felix. Felix becomes ecstatic the moment he sees her. The woman, who does not speak the language of the cottagers, is Safie. She moves into the cottage with the neighbors, and the mood of the household immediately brightens. Safie has a different language than the cottagers and as she learns the language of the cottagers, the monster gets benefitted by that learning process and learns more of the language of the cottagers. it also learns to read since Felix uses Constantin-François de Volney’s Ruins of Empires to instruct Safie. It also learns a bit of world history in the process. The monster learns about human society by listening to its neighbors’ conversations. Now it can fully speak and understand the language and read some. Reflecting on its own situation and physical form, it realizes that its form is different than its neighbours. It feels isolated.
As time goes by the monster starts to know the history of the cottagers. The old man – De Lacey, was an affluent citizen in Paris. Agatha and Felix are his children. Safie’s father was falsely accused of a crime and was ordered a death penalty. Upon visiting Safie’s father in prison, Felix also met Safie and fell in love. Safie sent Felix letters thanking him for helping her father. Although Islam prevented Turkish women from gaining independence, Safie was a true independent and intelligent woman. Safie wanted to marry a European man in order to escape the near-slavery that awaited her in Turkey in the name of culture and marriage. in an effort to arrange an escape from prison for Safie’s father, Felix’s pla was discovered and his family and he were exiled from France. Then they moved into this cottage.
To visualize both chapters I have decided to do a bubble chart using Voyant tool. Each selected word is represented as a bubble with the size of the bubble indicating the word’s frequency in the corresponding segments in chapter 5 and 6 of the second volume.
Chapter 7, 8 & 9
In its search for food, the monster accidentally finds some books. The books include Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Sorrows of Werter, a volume of Plutarch’s Lives, and John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Paradise Lost has a deep effect on the monster. Eventually when it understands the way it was created after reading Victor’s journal, it is disgusted at the cruel process. Wishing to be friends with its neighbors, the monster reveals itself to the cottagers. But Felix drives it away, frightened by its physical appearance. Being rejected by the people it liked so much, the monster swears to revenge himself against all human beings, particularly Victor. On its way to Geneva, it gets shot by a man while it was trying to save his sister from drowning. All this adds its vengeance which eventually lead him to kill Victor’s brother upon knowing his identity. Having explained to Victor the circumstances behind William’s murder and Justine’s conviction, the monster begs Victor to create another female monster to accompany him and be his mate. It promises Victor that it will leave human civilization if Victor agrees to create a female for him.
To visualize these chapters, I have decided to use Trends in the Voyant tools. Trends help visualize not only the most important word frequencies but also where in the segement it happened.
Volume 3
Chapter 1,2,3
Even though Victor promised the monster that he would make a female monster for him, he puts off doing so for a while because he doubts about the consequences of agreeing to such an arrangement. Eventually he decided to travel to England and arrange a two-year tour to complete his promise to the monster, putting off his wedding to Elizabeth. Henry goes with Victor. Victor reaches a desolate island and starts working on creating a female monster to free himself of the bond to the monster. One night while working, he begins to think about the consequences of the creation of another monster. He thinks about the possibility of the monsters having children and creating a race of monsters. Eventually he destroys his work which is witnessed by the monster. The Monster is angry at Victor for breaking his promise and vows revenge. Later Victor threw away the remains of the second creature in the ocean and rests for a while. When he reaches the shore, he is greeted crudely and he comes to know that he is under suspicion for a murder.
To visualize these chapters, I have taken originals from the book and created a visual dialogue of the scene when Victor destroys the female monster and the monster vows revenge.
Chapter 4,5,6,7
To begin this series of chapters, Victor meets with the town’s magistrate Mr. Kirwin, who is a civil officer that administers the law for the town. Witnesses come forth to testify that a boat that looked like it belonged to Victor was found on the beach along with the body of a dead man. In an effort to validate the witness’s claims, Mr. Kirwin leads victor to the body and observes the effect it has on him. The sight of the body, who was identified as his friend Henry Clerval, fills Victor with horror and plunges Victor into a deep illness. Victor recovers from his illness in prison and is allowed to meet with a visitor that came to see him. The visitor that arrived was his father who stays with victor until his day in court. The outcome of the trail finds Victor innocent and right after his release, Victor and his father travels to Geneva. On the way to Geneva, Victor receives a letter from Elizabeth who is deeply worried about the illness that victor had and is questioning victors love for her. Victor gives Elizabeth reassurance in his reply and is reminded that the monster could very well attack him on his wedding day. After arriving in Geneva, Victor finds Elizabeth still worried about his well being, to which he reassures her again that everything will be well after his wedding. As the wedding date draws near, Victor becomes increasingly nervous as he thinks that the monster will attack him on his wedding day. Luckily for Victor his wedding day comes and goes without any monster incidents. After Victor and Elizabeth’s wedding they go on their honeymoon at his family’s cottage. Still fearful of a monster attack, he begins his search for the monster and unfortunately hears Elizabeth let out a scream as the monster kills her. With Elizabeth dead, Victor travels home to tell his father the news. Upon hearing the news, Victor’s father goes into shock and dies shortly after. After the death of all his loved ones, Victor finally comes cleans and tells the civil officer that the monster is responsible for the deaths of the people in the town. With the civil officer sceptical of Victor, Victor decides to take matters into his own hands and devotes himself to destroying his monstrous creation. Ultimately Victor is unsuccessful in tracking down the monster and entrusts Walton to continue his mission upon his death.
Throughout these chapters, Victor becomes obsessed with destroying the monster and ends up chasing Frankenstein to the ends of the earth. Even though he did not capture and destroy the monster, his journey of revenge was one that consumed him and was a journey that could be easily traced. In an attempt to capture this journey, I utilized Voyant tools Dreamscape program which was able to pick out key location which was pointed out within the text. The output from this program shows the great length Victor Frankenstein took to chase the monster. Further in an attempt to show his spiral in to his journey of revenge, I used the knot program by voyant tools in order to provide a visual representation of his journey. With the knot program the key words I used were: Clerval, Elizabeth, Frankenstein, Geneva, Journey, Victor, Walton, William, anguish, blood, desolation, die, father, fiendish, fury, hate, life, love and revenge. These words are words that accurately describe the influencing factors on his journey and reflects his mind set.
FIN.
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