Reading the play, "Wit" really hit me hard. It was an awaking of my feelings that I tried to put aside. On March 19, 2005 I lost a very dear person to me. My grandmother, it's kinda ironic that one of Vivan's students said he needed an extension on his paper because his grandmother died. I'm just glad Dr. Jerz didn't say the same thing to me that Vivan gave her student when my grandmother past. That's why I missed the Sonnet Slam. Anyway, this play really hit close to home. I was very emotional while reading this play. I'm still trying to get over her death and this play really brought up those feelings of sadness, regret, and pain back to me. I thought I was going to burst into tears in class.
My grandmother was just recovering from a gallbladder surgery. It's funny because I have to have the same surgery during summer break. Anyway, she was recovering and the doctor found out she had cancer. But my grandmother did have to suffer like Vivan, she ended up getting ammonia and died. I think that is why I liked this play so much. I was able to relate to it in a personal way.
The following paragraphs are just excerpts from the first draft of my term paper.
Orginal Thesis:
Human beings created these machines, but their dependence puts the machines in the higher hand of power. This is a relationship between the creator and the created like in the novel Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley.
As a part of human nature, people blame the creation when it is out of control, instead of the one who is most responsible: the creator. The creation is the victim of their creator and society. The creation usually mirrors the creator...(Berger 741).
Victor Frankenstein's monster symbolizes our desire as human beings to live “outside of the box”. We sometimes have a “desire to escape from the confines of human rationality, a “normal” life and the numerous burdens and limitations that society imposes on us” (Berger 742).
He felt unwanted because society could not understand him. Therefore, they feared what they could not understand: the monster wanted love from his creator (his father) and a companion who he could live with because he was suffering from loneliness. He wasn’t able to participate in society because he wasn’t accepted and was labeled an outcast. Instead of being loved, he was rejected by his father and denied a companion. The monster symbolizes our human nature of wanting to be needed, loved, and accepted among fellow people.
Nell was also seen as an outcast in the beginning of The Diamond Age because she was low class. In another sense, even when she was “accepted”, she was still an outcast. The reason for this is she started as a lower class nobody, but she grew into a great young woman who posses knowledge that everyone couldn’t understand. The Primer was a great invention. An invention that normally the higher class would have, not a low class girl such as Nell.
New Thesis???
I'm trying to come up with a new thesis at this point. I guess the problem is I didn't read the novel, Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, but I do have a secondary source which is an academic article, "Frankenstein: The New Prometheus" by Arthur Asa Berger.