The hardest workout of my life. . .

I know all of you out there have heard someone talk about the hardest workout of their life or the hardest thing of there life and once they get going the challenge that was set before them wasn't really that hard, but it was a mental wall they had to climb. Today I climbed that wall.
My schedule got rearranged (like they always do) and I had to double up on two serious workouts back to back if I was going to meet my training goals for this week. At 6:30 am Natalie and I left for our ride, nothing too serious, 17.12 miles and we maintained a 4:30/mi. pace which is pretty good for us right now considering we are riding these distances on mountain bikes! Anyways, as we are getting closer to the end of our ride and approaching our apartment I start to complain, "I wish I was the one getting ready to go to work instead of having to run ten miles" and Natalie answers me, "Yeah right, I'll take that run any day".

Now for those of you that know me I have always been a really good short distance runner. In high school my sister gave me the nick-name "midget" because in comparison to the other runners my build and the way I ran made me look like a midget, but I've always hated going for those long runs. Anything over three miles was laboriously intensive and I didn't want anything to do with them. Once we made our mind up to do this ironman thing I knew that I would have to change my outlook, but that it would be hard. So there I was this morning after having finished a pretty intense ride tying my shoe laces and putting on a purple bandana to get ready for this run.

Natalie and I have a policy that we don't ever run with ipods when we run together, because sharing the pain is part of what this ironman thing is about, but I was going out alone and I decided to bring along some audio of some great speakers that I needed to catch up on. I got it into my mind that I would just pace myself and finish. That was the most important thing I could do, finish. So I kissed Natalie goodbye and was out the door on my way.

Two miles in I felt pretty good until I had to hop the fence to get onto the horse trail (nice packed dirt trail, great for running) and I almost fell backwards trying to get over the fence. My legs were wobbly and I almost keeled over. On my second attempt I made it over and started my run again. Mile four: I'm hot, I've soaked through my shirt and sweat more than I knew was in me. My bandana couldn't keep the sweat from my eyes but I pushed harder. When I got to the first water fountain on Bolsa Chica State beach I stopped my watch, took off my head band soaked it in cool water, hid in the shade for two minutes, then I started again. My body temperature was not able to regulate itself any longer. I was burning up, so I knew that I needed to cool my body down every few miles. When I reached mile seven I was so tired and overheated that I though I might have to call a taxi!

I've playing in Rugby tournaments, I've run races, swam races, competed in Soccer tournaments and worked 10 hour days on Ranches and building pools, yet here I was faced with my greatest challenge to date. I made a decision there to finish even if I had to stop in the shade ever 100 yards. I would stop my watch every time I stopped and not advance any further until my watch was started again. What I knew then, and what I am sharing with you now, is that if I could finish this workout, as hard and challenging as it might be, then I could finish the ironman I have set in my sights next may.

I do have to give some credit to Bill Orender and his talk titled "Driven by your Goals", seemed like the perfect thing to motivate me through this run, but it is important to know that I am not a good distance runner and that it still stands as a major challenge to me and I'm sure it always will, but perseverance and perspective are two majors factors in achieving any goals. It was important for me to persevere, but more importantly the perspective I have now at this stage of training allowed me to realize that I couldn't fail, I was beyond that point. Four weeks ago that would have been a different story.

Lastly it is important to set your goals. Every week Natalie and I sit down and write our goals out, "Think in Ink" so to speak and every week we try to hit those number. Without those goals there is no point in training, or doing anything else. Make goals and stick to them, you'll see what you can really achieve!

I've wanted to quit several times, not just during the workout, but the whole thing, "stupid Ironman" I'd say, but that not it, its stupid Troy for not believing in myself. Have a great day! I hope you accomplish all you set out to do!

Update on our CRAZY training!

Good morning! So, we trained hard last week, but found ourselves separated by the miles between Huntington Beach and Atlanta. I flew to Atlanta for a business conference and Natalie stayed here and stayed diligent:)
Training Updates:
Mileage to Date:
Run: (T) 147.43 Miles (N) 148.15 Miles
Bike: (T) 394.68 Miles (N) 315.06 Miles
Swim: (T) 42900 Yards (26 Miles) (N) 33850 Yards (Approx. 20 Miles)

Natalie went on a ride last week with her brother while I was out of town, she says it was the strongest headwind that she has ever faced. She still maintained a 4:45/mi. pace. She says she is getting "Manly"!

While Running in Atlanta I found the humidity and elevation to be a bit of a challenge. We get so used to training here in Sunny Southern California that we forget we are at sea level and with no humidity it is easier to breath. I ran really hard the first night we got there and paid the price of an impromptu basketball game with my friend Tom (btw, I don't do basketball) where we were slipping all over the wet court. I feel on my butt several times.

Some training tips and ideas:
I think we are going to try and get to Mammoth for some training before October. We need the elevation, but we don't want to train when all the High School and College teams are up there.

Consistency is the key to success. We don't run 30 Miles a day, but we consistently workout and set goals (which we rarely hit). We've entered week nine. Lots of distance to show for ourselves.

Next Race:
We are doing a Swim/Run Race with the Lifeguards in July. More info to follow. Natalie would really love your support so if you're not doing anything at 5 in the morning on race day, please come out and holler for her!

Thanks for reading!

Our Next adventure!

Well, it has been a whole year since we last blogged about our wonderful European Adventure. Natalie and I just celebrated our one year anniversary and we ate some really old wedding cake which was actually okay! We've done a lot this year, Natalie got a job with a technical company as an Editor and I started my own business with Primerica Financial Services. Things are looking very bright for our future, but we felt that something was missing, that we needed some excitement.

One day a few weeks ago Natalie and I were discussing her running friends and how she really wanted to race again. It was hard for me to accept the invitation since I was at an extreme disadvantage in distance running since I had not done very much of it. So we settled on a compromise, we were going to compete in a triathlon. Not just any triathlon mind you, but an Ironman Triathlon.

For those of you who don't know what a triathlon is, let me enlighten you. The event consists of a swim, then a bike and finally a run to the finish line. Triathlons can be any distance and can vary dramatically. An Ironman triathlon is a 2.4 Mile Swim, followed by a 112 Mile Bike and finished with a 26.2 Mile run to the finish. We have committed to the St. George Utah qualifying Ironman race next May 2012. To compete is roughly $700 per person and we also need to purchase race bikes which run about $2000 a person. Counting the time and equipment it will take to complete this event, we will both invest over $10,000 in time and money to be Ironmen (and Women). If you would like to help us to race in the form of sponsorship or support please post on the blog or my facebook page:)

Training:
To be honest we are now in our 7th week of training, but I want to recap some of the training fun that has been going on.
Week One: We ran a total of 22.53 Miles, Biked 48.2 Miles and Swam 1100 Yards. It was not too hard, but seemed like a lot at the time!
By week Four we were really training hard and had run 23.88 Miles, biked 81.34 and swam 8700 yards. Week four was the first week we did a long Saturday run. Out of the 23.88 Miles we ran a 13.95 mile run in a time of 2 hours and 25 minutes which is approx. 10:25 Miles. It was a good start, but we didn't realize how fast we were going to get in such a short time.
Week Five: This was our first rest week, where we ran or biked short distances at high speeds. We ran a 3-Mile Pace run @ 7:12 Miles and did an 8 Mile Bike sprint averaging 3:33/mi. for 8 miles (not bad for mountain bikes with street tires!).
By week eight (this week) we were really stepping it up, running farther and faster and biking much farther. On Saturday (yesterday) we ran 13.97 Miles in 2 hours and 3 minutes for a pace of 8:48/mi. but that includes our slow warm-up mile, and this morning we biked 41.1 Miles biking out to Anaheim Hills and back from our house. Our weekly goals for week eight are 35 miles run, 65 biked and 7500 swam. I leave for Atlanta on Wednesday, so its going to be a challenge to be dedicated to working out without my workout buddy!
Natalie is a stud, pushing herself hard through all the training. She keeps me going when I don't want to give the extra.

The point of this blog is not to brag, but to show you that you can achieve anything you set your mind to. I am not a skinny running type of person. Every step I take puts 200 plus pounds of weight on my knees and ankles, but I'm doing this to show people I can do it. Natalie was not a swimmer 8 weeks ago, now she's turning into a fish. Our first race is the Mega Colossus on July 14th starting at State beach and finishing in Seal beach. If you want to come out, we would love the support. We'll also be posting pictures periodically to keep you all in the loop of our fun training.

Also, if anyone wants to run, swim or bike with us, let me know, there's always room for more! Check back soon!

Our new toy.

Natalie and I got a new toy for Christmas. It is a program called Dragon Dictate. You talk into a headset and it types all the words out for you. In fact I'm using it right now to write this blog. It is amazing what technology can do!

You may be wondering what could you possibly need a dictation program for? Well, Natalie and I do a lot of writing and this program will simplify the writing and save us time. My plan is to write three books this spring. Natalie writes on a daily basis as a ghostwriter for an Iranian refugee. Her contact fled Iran after the 1979 revolution. Natalie goes to her house once a week or every other week and records her stories and writes them out into manuscript form. Natalie's writing these manuscripts for a director who her contact has been working with.

So as you can see this program is going to make our lives much easier! The program is not perfect, but the speed in which it writes makes any corrections a simple click fix, not an elaborate process. It is interesting to note that it profiles your speech pattern to be as accurate as possible.

Thanks for being my first test dummies!
Happy holidays and a wonderful new year!

Troy
(Natalie says hi to!)

What a way to go!

Don't worry, no one died, but I'm talking about 2010.

Last night Natalie and I went to a Christmas party at a friend's house. They are new friends to us and they are very cool people. Natalie was so cute and she drank a whole bottle of wine. I was DD and we got home safe. She danced through the house like a nymph and giggled for a few hours until she finally settled down to sleep.She mad one memorable comment and I want to share it. She told me "I'm not that Drunk. Aha!" It was so hilarious.

Neither Natalie or myself drink very often, but I've noticed something we have in common, we're both very happy when we're drunk. There's no anger, or frustration, just happiness and laughing.

Earlier this week I was celebrating finishing my college degree. I drank way too much (even for me) and ended up floundering around the house with a goofy smile on my face. At one point I told Natalie that she looked like "Stitch" from Disney's "Lilo and Stitch" and then jumped up and ran into the bedroom. She though that I was running to get the movie, but we don't even own the movie. I just had to pee!

I have a theory about drunk people. If they are happy when they are drunk, they are probably happy with themselves and the life they lead. Sad, angry or frustrated: well, I believe they correspond. So, a simple word to the wise. Before you marry, see your partner drunk at least twice, strictly for scientific purposes. Cheers!

Our Final Deeds of 2010...

This has been quite the year for me:

I married a lovely woman who lights up my life.

I graduated college after fourteen years of trudging through the vast marshes of academia.

I was fired from my job for something I didn't do.

I played in a major Irish Festival with my band the Humble Hooligans.

I traveled all over the most western part of Europe.

I met some amazing people.

I fought with myself to be a better person.

I became an impromptu art promoter.

I started working in a bar again after all those years away.

I lost a dear friend, my cat Eli.

The only thing I can't know is what lays ahead. I want to do some big things this year. I am writing at least one book, which I will periodically post here. I am touring with the band for the first time. I am going to make new friends and meet new and exciting people. I am going to buy a house (hopefully) and start graduate school and a family...

So what I propose is this on-line toast:

Raise your glasses...

"Here is to the future, to the glorious moments and the sad ones.
To knowing that you can achieve anything you put your mind to.
To holding in your heart the things that remain most dear,
and never compromising your values.
To special moments and memories,
the ones that will stay with you for all time.
This toast is for the uncertainty and spontaneity of life.
Here's to you...
My friends"

Best Wishes in 2011!

Troy

The Reflecting Glass

Mary Shelley touched on something very dark and powerful when she penned her famous novel Frankenstein. The story follows the life of a young scientist who finds himself enchanted by the power of science. He delves into the dark recesses of the human mind to create a monster. Victor Frankenstein is disgusted by his creation and the novel follows the battle within himself as “creator”. The most important idea of the novel does not deal with the monster and his human consciousness, but the power that allowed Victor to create a living, breathing, feeling creature. This omnipotence that Victor possesses is at the heart of the novel and the basis of a new line of argument for English Gothic texts. According to Horst Eberhard-Richter, the author of All Mighty: A Study of the God Complex in Western Man, Victor simply follows the path that has been laid out before him. Like many great minds that have emerged since the middle ages, Victor has chosen Science over God and, in his choice, has replaced God with his own Ego. This decision is not a conscious one on the part of Victor, but a subconscious reaction to the circumstances surrounding Western Man since the middle ages. Shelley has created a character whose circumstances bring him to face to face with God, but all he can see is his own reflection. Victor Frankenstein is the penultimate example of the “God Complex” in Western Man. Victor needs to complete the cycle of humanity, reenacting each moment of history since the middle ages, in order to become God. Victor realizes too late that God is the equivalent of loneliness and that the monster is the equivalent of humanity.

There can be no application of the “God Complex” to Victor Frankenstein without understanding how Richter defines the complex. Richter introduces the idea of a young adult who attempts to control all aspects of his life. Richter explains that from an adult’s point of view they cannot understand these emotions, but if the adult sees the issue from a younger perspective of vulnerability, the emotional response seems to make sense, “At a time when, objectively speaking, they are totally dependent on parental care and protection, it throws them into a panic if they feel they can no longer rely on this protection” (Richter 3). It is this feeling of helplessness that drives the young adult to seize control of their life. Richter asserts that the young adult:
. . .is dominated by the conviction that the only way he can compensate for his helplessness and prevent his own destruction is by overcompensation, by becoming omnipotent and omniscient. (Richter 5)
It is not Richter’s goal to psychoanalyze the developmental habits of young adults, however. He applies this metaphor to the process of transitioning out of the middle ages and he likens man’s psychological process as “somewhat akin to those which (he) ha(s) just described as typical of the reactions of certain children” (Richter 5).
Richter suggests that Western Man’s troubles began with Augustine of Hippo. Augustine’s principal theory was that men were not supposed to use reason to get close to God. He argued that God would choose those who would receive salvation and those who would pay for original sin. Richter thinks that, “It was difficult for people to acknowledge their absolute dependency on God when they could not count on receiving His grace” (Richter 5). Given his opinion, he thinks that man was “justified in placing greater reliance on the knowledge he could personally acquire by the exercise of his own intellect” (Richter 5-6). The idea of faith is a hard concept to wholly embrace. Richter believes knowledge that is tangible will supersede any concept of something this is merely conjectured. The argument that men in the Middle Ages felt less protected by God and therefore pursued knowledge to replace him, according to Richter was done out of fear that “rebellion might truly call down on (man’s) head the wrath of God” (Richter 6), that each increase in the “personal power” of man would equally increase the potential for “retribution”. As each step moved man farther from God, an emotional divide developed. Man was not aware that the process of taking more and more of God’s power was dethroning him, but justified their own actions by convincing themselves that they only wanted “a greater awareness of God” (Richter 7).

Richter continues the timeline of development for Western Man when he discusses the Alchemists. He believes that “Alchemy was a blatant manifestation of man’s desire to appropriate all of God’s miraculous powers” (Richter 7). With each step Richter argues that Western man has systematically replaced God with his own reason and knowledge. In the seventeenth century Descartes continues this pattern, “In the philosophy of Descartes we see a particularly clear-cut case of man’s radical reversal of attitude, from passive submission to a role of vigilant domination. The individual ego assumes the place of God” (Richter 12). Descartes has completely removed the need for God in the mind of man and has completely replaced it with his own ego. Richter’s main point is that:
Man’s fear of abandonment by God turned into a fear of losing his absolute certitude, and thereby his ability to exercise intellectual dominion over the surrounding world. (Richter 12)
Subconsciously, through his fear of abandonment, like that of the young adult, man has compensated by denying weakness and developing strength through knowledge. He found himself unable to be a part of a world he could not control, so he created a world in which he was omnipotent. At the moment that man emerged from the Middle Ages, touting his accumulation of knowledge, and into the present he was celebrated, only to be seen for what he was, a coward running from a fear of his helplessness wearing the façade of God (Richter 12-13). Finally, through the Middle Ages, and into the modern era, man has arrived at an image of God, and what he sees is his reflection. Similarly, Victor can only see himself once he has transcended humanity, but before he can become God he must start the cycle of knowledge.

Knowledge is crucial to Victor’s progress and he must find the scholars who came before him. Mary Shelley and Horst Eberhard-Richter discuss the ideas of the Alchemist Cornelius Agrippa, who believed that by discovering how to turn anything into gold he could cure all the ailments of mankind. Young Victor is excited by the works of the Agrippa but is put off by the comments of his father regarding the text. Victor’s father says that Agrippa’s works are “sad trash” and for Victor not to “waste his time upon” them (Shelley 21). Richter approaches Agrippa from a different perspective. He believes that the point of view that Agrippa was writing from during his period was the right one and that his writings were “simply transferred onto modern mathematics” (Richter 14). For Victor to achieve “Godliness” he needs to appropriate the teachings of Agrippa as part of his learning cycle. Victor embodies the learning of the men from the renaissance period as his progression of youth. Richter’s validation was not needed for young Victor as he pursues the text even after his father admonished him. Victor needs to overcome the “confidence in Kabalistic and magical formulas and in rituals of conjuration, which were current at the time of Cornelius Agrippa” (Richter 14) for him to complete this aspect of his training. This objective is easier said than done for Victor who is enamored with natural science and the ideas that Agrippa represents. He is challenging the nature of God because of his insecurities through the application of magic first and then science. Victor even admits that had his father “taken the pains to explain to (him), that the principles of Agrippa had been entirely exploded” that it was entirely plausible that his thoughts would never have taken him to his place of “ruin” (Shelley 21). For Victor to become omnipotent he must challenge magic first, just as medieval man has, so his study of Agrippa is an integral part of his character development.

On Victor’s journey to omnipotence he must attempt to recreate that which came before him. This process is essential to the art of science. Victor, through his studies of Agrippa and Magnus tries to create the “Philosopher’s Stone” and the “elixir of life” (Shelley 22). Richter would say that Victor has “reified nature, turned it into an object of scientific study, thus creating (for himself) a new role: that of the detached intellectual observer” (Richter 7). Victor has to distance himself from nature to examine it from a scientific perspective. He believes his intentions to be noble “wealth was an inferior object; but what glory would attend the discovery, if I could banish disease from the human frame, and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death” (Shelley 22). Victor must reconstruct the past through his search for the “Philosopher’s Stone”. Without this aspect of his journey Victor can never become God. The knowledge that the stone represents is a culmination of all the ideas of the Middle Ages, “The ‘Philosopher’s Stone’ with its unlimited magical powers, reflected the spirit of the age, for it symbolized man’s desire, or rather his compulsion, to appropriate God’s omnipotence: If he was no longer possible to have God, at least it might be possible to become Him.” (Richter 8). Every step Victor takes, every moment of progress, is a moment towards self-reliance and the ability to “possess infinity” and become God (Richter 14). The time spent studying magic only fueled Victor’s desire for tangible knowledge, but fulfilled the necessary step of embracing the renaissance understanding of knowledge with alchemy: “The ego, in a sense, assimilated the whole potential of magic by denying the reality of everything which it had not verified and appropriated by its own intellectual power” (Richter 12). What Victor could not prove with his foray into alchemy he proves with actual biology and chemistry, a version of modern magic.

It must be made clear that, at first, Victor is not consciously seeking to become God. He is acting on his emotions and instincts. Part of the definition of “God Complex” is the perceived loss of trust and or protection of the parent; in Victor’s case it is the loss of his mother. In his book The Gothic Psyche Matthew Brennan elaborates on Victor’s reliance on his mother, “Tracing the stages of Victor Frankenstein’s psychic self-destruction shows how Victor’s stable childhood crumbles and how his misfortune helps cause a neurotic scientific obsession” (Brennan 57). In Brennan’s opinion Victor’s childhood is completely reliant on his mother and it is her death that affects him the most. Victor’s scientific obsession is similar to the one that preceded him in medieval man. The only way that Victor can control his emotions is to “overcompensate” which Richter defined as part of the process. The loss of Victor’s mother was the final aspect to be fulfilled. Victor now has every opportunity to turn away from God and towards reason and knowledge, and he does this willingly to seek protection from his vulnerability.

Victor can see no other option then to commit himself to science and to ignore the world around him, “Two years passed in this manner, during which (he) paid no visit to Geneva, but was engaged heart and soul, in pursuit of some discoveries, which (he) hoped to make” (Shelley 29). Victor abandons mankind and God. He has nothing left but the disconnected view of nature that he pursued earlier in his life. In a misguided attempt to protect himself, Victor has completely cut himself off from humanity, his only chance for his salvation. With this disconnect Victor has also cut himself off from God as the creator of humanity. This drastic severing allows Victor push farther than Western Man has ever dared to go. Not only does Victor have knowledge and the power that comes from that knowledge, but he will possess supreme power over man as a creator. At this point Victor is deliberately usurping God’s power. He has completely mastered the ability to create life “my imagination was too much exulted by my first success to permit me to doubt my ability to give life” (Shelley 31). He has allowed his ego to “turn into the image of God” (Richter 10).

Victor never contemplates the right or wrong of his actions, because in science there is no right or wrong, only results or failures. The only thing Victor considers is what kind of creation he should make. He is too consumed by his own power, the “narcissistic omnipotence”, to understand that with the rejection of the monster he has chosen to isolate himself from humanity. He never stops to consider his creation as a living, thinking being. As a creator he only cares about the power he possesses, not the result of his knowledge. Victor never understands that he justifies replacing faith with knowledge, trying to overcompensate the loss of both a biological and a spiritual parent, leaving him feeling abandoned an unprotected.
Victor’s approach to science is one that continually distances him from God. Richter explains that when God was part of the equation for mankind it was circular. With the inclusion of God everything began and ended in a cyclical pattern, “This circular, closed system was breached the moment the distrustful ego of man began looking beyond the circumscription of revealed truth for answers to his questions” (Richter 9). Victor no longer has a beginning or an end. This idea is so ingrained in Victor’s mind that he can’t separate it from the truth, there must always be a beginning and an ending, yet he perceives everything in scientific terms, when he considers the “improvement which every day takes place in science and mechanics, (he is) encouraged to hope (his) present attempts would at least lay the foundations of future success” (Shelley 31). Victor realizes only too late that his creation forces endings in his life, the murder of his younger brother and his wife. In essence, everything for Victor has come full circle, which is not the projected outcome of science.

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in her essay title “Frankenstein and Devi’s Pterodactyl” argues “Frankenstein’s apparent antagonist is God himself as the Maker of Man” (Spivak 56). Based on Richter’s definition of the “God Complex” this would be inaccurate. Victor doesn’t think that he is becoming God, and Richter confirms this:
“The more God’s power man usurped, the more vehemently and ingeniously he convinced himself that in reality the only reason why he wanted to annex those of God’s powers which were operative in nature was to acquire greater awareness of God himself” (Richter 7).
Victor doesn’t think that God is the antagonist because he doesn’t believe he has achieved the same status as God. Unknowingly he has acquired the power of God yet his narcissism blinds him from the truth.

By using Richter’s definition of the “God Complex” and applying it to Victor Frankenstein there are several things that can be surmised. The first is that in seeking to gain knowledge and understanding of the world, Victor has created a fissure between himself and God. The second is that his inability to find comfort in a parental figure only adds to his sense of loss and insecurity. This feeling of helplessness is where his troubles begin. Thirdly, that Victor must travel the same path as the men that came before him, a coming of age, to wade through magic into science and to completion as a new God. Although Victor does not actively seek Godliness, he achieves it through blindness and persistent drive to gain divine knowledge. Victor’s knowledge is linear, yet the circle that encompasses all natural things in inevitable. Lastly that Victor acknowledges no antagonists other than the monster, and never sees God as his opposite. This ignorance to his power is what limits Victor’s power over the monster and what finally ends his life. Victor Frankenstein did not choose to abandon God. The parallel between Victor and God and the monster and humanity is too great to ignore. When Victor becomes God he sees his creation as a monster, which begs to reason that God sees humanity as a monster. Ironically, Victor was afraid of being left defenseless and alone, yet his journey into the depths of the human psyche and his creation of the monster cause him to realize his greatest fear: To be God is to be alone.




Works Cited

Brennan, Matthew C. The Gothic Psyche: Disintegration and Growth in Nineteenth-
century English Literature. Columbia, SC, USA: Camden House, 1997. Print.

Richter, Horst-Eberhard. All Mighty: A Study of the God Complex in Western Man.
Trans. Jan Van Heurck. Claremont, CA, U.S.A.: Hunter House, 1984. Print.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. "Frankenstein and Devi's Pterodactyl." Empire and the
Gothic: the Politics of Genre. By Andrew Smith and William Hughes. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Print.

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, and J. Paul Hunter. Frankenstein: the 1818 Text, Contexts,
Nineteenth-century Responses, Modern Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996. Print.