Annotations

I found both the readings from Appendix B and Otis’s essay to be very intriguing on many different levels. One aspect that I was very drawn to, perhaps because of our discussion in class on Monday, was the topic of why a novel was written. I found it very interesting to go from reading a novel such as Frankenstein who’s meaning and purpose can be taken in hundreds of different directions, to a Heart and Science which begins with two prefaces that give the read explanation to the intended purpose of the text. Otis concludes at the end of his essay “that Collins and Wells retry Ferrier by creating fiction that recalls and challenges his science” (46).

Heart and Science, though arguably not one of Collin’s best works, was written for a distinct purpose. The novel aims to influence the societal views during the turbulent ethical debates of the end of the nineteenth century. Collin’s does this the best way he knew how, through the written word.

Collin’s achieves his goal by depicting the character of Benjulia as a mad scientist. Throughout the entirety of the novel Bejulia is portrayed in ways the make him seem barbaric, untrustworthy, and almost monstrous. Collin’s plays to the prejudices of the day by describing the scientist as having “the hair of an American Indian” and the complexation of “true gipsy brown.” By using subtle characterizations such as this Collins argues his point that vivisectionist are barbaric and bad people. This is similar to the way Claude Bernard’s views of vivisection which describe such scientists as men who do “not hear the animal’s cries of pain, and [are] blind to the blood that flows, and who [see] nothing but [their] idea and organisms which conceal from [them] the secrets [they are] resolved to discover.” Both of these depiction were of the same goal, to try and persuade the general population to view vivisection as a monstrosity of science.

Beyond the reading into the purpose of why Heart and Science written, I also came across many connections to our previous reading of Frankenstein while reading these supplemental texts. In the third section of Appendix B the concept of gender roles is brought into question which is something we talked quite a bit about during the reading of our last novel. We concluded that there quiet a lot of evidence to read Frankenstein through the lens of a feminist, and it would seem the there is also for Heart and Science. In Otis’s essay he describes how Collin’s seems to categorize his characters “into either ‘heart’ or ‘science’ camps” (38) with many of the women falling into the heart camp. Yet it is also argued in Appendix B that “it is not true that fools and women and children are on one side, and wise men on the other”. There is also a connection between Otis’s writings and points about the ethics of what is natural and the ethical dilemmas of Frankenstein. The monster created by Frankenstein seems to be denied ethical rights, because it is not natural. This seems to parallel with Otis’s point of if it ethical to maim natural animals for unnatural things (page 33.)

Over all there are far more connections between our three current reading pertaining to Heart and Science  as well as our reading of Frankenstein than I can fit into this one blog post. However, I hope to explore these topics and more during our in class discussion.