Life changing

Duane Robbins

Mr. Roberts

AP Literature

04/09/2012

Reading in my life

During my life I have read a number of different novels hat have projected me into wild and wonderful stories both of fiction and non-fiction.  Sadly, I can honestly say that few have ever changed my view of the world or even a certain subject.  However, the novel Frankenstein gave me a greater understanding and overall view of regret and sadness.

Throughout Frankenstein the reader continually hears about regret through the eyes of the monster and of doctor Frankenstein.  Regret for his creation and for the death of his friends and family haunted the young doctor until he became deathly ill and in the end, led to his death.  Regret has never been a concept that I had top deal with in the few years I have lived, so reading about the trouble that regret causes these characters and allowed me to learn a lesson, without having to live it.  Regret ruled the life of Frankenstein and gave me a wake up call before I made a grave mistake and lived with regret for the rest of my life.

Throughout this story sadness from a cruel society, destroys the kindness that the monster once felt and replaced it with violent revenge towards his master/creator.  Carroll county has never been a school system ruled by bullying so I never seen or experienced the cruelty of society.  The life that the monster was exposed to, opened my eyes to the cruelty that society can show when they are scared or don’t understand.  This shows the narrow mindedness that todays world shows and the anger that a otherwise peaceful society can unleash in a blink of an eye.

            Throughout all 5 novels, death seems to be a recurring theme and can actually be described as a main theme in a fraction of the stories.  Death has never been a big thing in my life, because almost all my family is alive, and I was an infant when one of my great uncles had passed away.  So these novels gave me a great insight to the overall theme of death.  The sorrow, despair, anger, hatred, joy, and forgiveness that is the novel Frankenstein truly gave me the greatest view.   

            Overall not to many novels have changed my views that I had already based an option on, but there are a selected few that have left an impact.  Some lessons will help me in life and will better me overall and some will make me more aware of my surrounding environment.  Great American literature is not meant for just a pleasant read, but have hiding messages and lessons sewn into the paragraphs to help the reader become a better individual.