Nightmarish terrors, a monster and modern science

In the course of two pool lessons students from class 6b dealt with the world of the gothic – a literary genre featuring gloomy settings, hideous creatures like monsters and the crossing of boundaries. They were involved in the literary analysis of the key passage from Frankenstein, the famous horror story written by Mary Shelley on the artificial creation of a monster by the scientist Victor Frankenstein. Victor is doomed because of his corrupting striving for knowledge which transgresses the limits of nature.
Students found out that the subject matter of the book is still an important issue, even 200 years after the book was written (e.g. nuclear bombs and the invention of the computer).
After various communicative activities of textual analysis and the extensive treatment of vocabulary the pupils could watch the film scene and do a comparative analysis between the visual interpretation of the scene and the original.
Finally an in-depth discussion of the contemporary relevance of the novel followed which rounded off this excursion into Gothic horror and convinced the students of the necessity to include timeless examples of literature in language teaching.

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November 2005

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