Irvine Valley College:  Online Literature Study of the School of Humanities and Languages

Literature 110 - Popular Literature

Spring 2013 - Ticket #62740  // Marjorie Coverley Luesebrink, MFA, Instructor

Unit 2d:  Clear-cut Value System

To begin looking at value systems in fiction, we have to tease a couple of items apart.  We always want to remember that each and every writer has an individual and personal set of values - and that from writer to writer and book to book, these can vary quite a bit.  For example, in Margaret Mitchell's *Gone With the Wind* "honor to kin and clan" has a high value.  In *Frankenstein* the issue of "honor" is primarily an issue of individual ethics, not influenced by kin and clan at all.

In any piece of fiction, genre or literary, there are several ways that value systems are established.  

The most familiar way is for the author to assign a set of values to the hero or heroine.  Usually the hero or heroine need to have some of the "approved" values at the beginning of the story for us to want to follow their story.  But, in many cases, the hero or heroine comes to understand the author's idea of the "highest" values only during the final resolution of the story.  In *Gone With the Wind* Scarlett spends hundreds of pages "learning" what it means to have what Mitchell seems to suggest is "real honor" and "real charity to others."   In the most simplified of genre fiction, the hero or heroine does not really change in the course of the story - and in these cases, the protagonist (hero or heroine) will usually be seen to have all of the approved values of the author right from the start (more or less true in Zane Grey novels).  The "good qualities" of an author's value system can also be embedded in a secondary character, such as Melanie in *Gone With the Wind" or Hermoine in "Harry Potter."

Melanie Wilkes in *Gone With the Wind*

Ashley, Scarlett, Melanie in *Gone With the Wind*

Another way for the author to signal value system priorities is by the way the plot works out.  In "literary" fiction it sometimes happens that the "wrong" value system triumphs - a pessimistic statement by the author on the state of the world.  In Popular Fiction, though, the approved value system generally succeeds:  genre fiction tends to end on an optimistic note.  

Finally, we can see the way that value systems can be introduced by the author in the backgound construction of the text.  In *Harry Potter* we see Harry, Hermoine, and Ron are very excited as they are going off to the library before the Christmas holidays.  The Library!  Really!  In fact, the value of books and learning is underscored everywhere by the author.

The Potter trio looking into the Books

In *Frankenstein* - oddly enough - what seems to be the highest value set is embodied in the Monster, himself.  

The Monster is the one who seeks human companionship, wants to be accepted as a part of creation on his own terms, and has no intention of doing harm to another living being.  The "horror" of the story is that the Monster finds himself cut off from all living creatures, abandoned by whatever god there might be, and isolated in the universe.  Critics have pointed out that Mary Shelley, herself, felt such isolation as a child.  She was, of course, the daughter of Mary Wollestonecraft.  However, after her mother's death, her stepmother kept her from joining in the intellectual and social world of her father and keeping her instead, in the narrow and isolated world of women.  Still and all, the intellectual and artistic world that Mary Shelley gained when she ran off with Percy Shelley in her teens fares not so well in the value system of the *Frankenstein* story.  Dr. F. is an intellectual, a scientist, and even an artist of a sort - but he is cold and arrogant.  His knowledge does not inform his humanity until the very, bitter end!  We can talk about this on the Discussion List!

Mythological and Folk Referents: 

References to Myth and Folk forerunners can be found in many places in *Frankenstein.*  We have already mentioned Prometheus (part of the title) and The Mad Scientist that comes from Medieval Folklore about Alchemy. 

Just to give you a better idea of the folk roots of Alchemy - some links about that.

The Alchemist Creating Gold from Dross

The Official Alchemy Site

More about Alchemy

Wiki site for Alchemy

Intimacy of Style and Tone

Because the actual events and time of *Frankenstein* is distanced from the reader by the frame, it is the frame that we will look at for intimacy of Style and Tone.  We can comment on this on the Discussion List!

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Horror:  

Mary Shelley is surely the pre-eminent inventor of the horror genre, but Popular Literature is notable for the excellence of the writers in this genre:

Bram Stoker, author of Dracula:  This site has a discussion of the horror story, biographical information on Bram Stoker, forum for scholars and students, and the complete text of Dracula for you to read!  http://www.online-literature.com/stoker/dracula/

Stephen King - a very popular author that many of you may have read - his official website:  http://www.stephenking.com/