Tag Archive: love

The Wedding Night

By Mahealani LaRosa



“What are you thinking about?”

Elizabeth’s voice broke through the increasingly overwhelming thoughts.


She laughed lightly at his quick excuse and stood up.

“Want to go for a walk?”


“Where do you want to go?”












Dear Mahealani LaRosa,



Looking forward to your next release,

An Avid Fan 


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All I could remember were the sounds; people yelling at the police force ahead of us, holding up signs that ranged from ‘LOVE IS LOVE’ to ‘WE’RE HUMAN TOO.’ There were thousands of us rallying, yet the stretch of people could make you think of a much, much bigger crowd than just that.

I was one of the front pusher for the protest, holding a sign of my own as well. “Love! Trumps! Hate! Love! Trumps! Hate!” The mantra had turned from a chant into a screaming match, the police officers owning a mantra of their own to battle ours back.

“Just go home, you scum! This won’t make any difference, no matter how long you stay out here!” One particular officer snarled, before landing his impatient gaze onto me. I stared back at him as I continued to scream, to cry out for Justice from our government, as the officer took a small but menacing step towards me. “All you are is a freak. A goddamn freak of nature, you hear me?” I averted my eyes from him as he spoke, yet that only seemed to spur the man further. One more step towards me, towards us. “You’ll never fit in with society, you ugly piece  of human garba-”.

He was cut off as another protestor beside me shoved him back, a spunky-looking girl with chopped hair dyed as blue as the afternoon sky. While she did so, she continued to chant, her eyes holding a challenge towards the officer. He smiled wickedly. “Oh, you know it’s true. YOU ALL KNOW THAT IT’S TRUE! YOU DON’T BELONG HERE WITH US, YOU MONSTERS! LEAVE US BE! YOU’LL NEVER BE A PART OF SOCIETY WITH US!” The stranger pushed the officer once more, much harder, and knocked him to the ground.

Immediately after the girl shoved him once more, all Hell seemed to break loose. Suddenly all of the officers surged forward, their fiberglass shields raised and thrust into our faces, forcing us back as they helped their fallen man. Out of the corner of my eye. I could see one policeman push his shield so hard into a man’s face that it seemed to break his nose, blood gushing downwards at a nonstop. Shouts continued, but they changed from our mantra into shouts of fear as protestors were forced backwards. Someone linked their arm into mine, and in a daze of confusion I swung my attention to my side. There she was, standing like a beacon of hope for everyone around her; the girl with the blue hair, a triumphant smile planted on her dark-painted lips. She shot her eyes at me and winked, her smile growing larger. “Don’t even think about listening to them. We’re just as human as them, if not more.” She swung her attention back to the scene in front of her. “WE’RE HUMANS, TOO! WE’RE HUMANS, TOO!” In her other arm, another person was linked, then another, and another, until a wall of us were standing up against a wall of them. Even my other arm became captive to the cause, and I soon found myself shouting along with everyone else, begging for our voices to be heard by not just the force ahead of us, but the entire world; “WE’RE HUMANS, TOO! WE’RE HUMANS, TOO!”

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In the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, readers see the constant rejections from society that the creature must endure, as well as name calling such as “demon”, “monster”, and countless other terms. Although this novel was written in the 19th century, those elements are still present today. For my creative writing project, I decided to use the setting of an equality protest. The reason why I did so is because of the backlash that the protestors receive, not only from the police force, but also from pedestrian viewers and others who watch on a glass screen in the safety of their own homes. Instead of sticking to an exact scene in the book, however, I took the liberty of basing my story on a quote, which can be found in Chapter 5, after Frankenstein has created the creature; “… he was ugly then; but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived.” (Shelley 52) This quote not only embodies the first rejections made towards the creature in its brief moments of innocent life, but also portrays the complete and utter helplessness that the creature is forced into. The creature, barely coming into existence, tries to welcome his “father”, Victor Frankenstein, by reaching out to him while he is lying in his bed, causing Frankenstein to panic for his own safety instead of trying to incorporate his experiment into society properly. This rejection causes the spur for the rest of the novel, from the creature learning life from a distance to the multiple murders committed. If it was not evident in my story, I had made a twist on the tale by creating a “happy” ending, with people rising up together instead of apart, in order to fight for what they believe is right and just.

– Jody R. Omlin

(SIDE NOTE: I do have a different version of Frankenstein that I am quoting from, so if you cannot find the passage on page 52, don’t worry! It is found in Chapter 5, when Victor awakens to find his creation staring down at him and smiling. :))


My dear Elizabeth, I was too late

diminished by the “vicious” hands of my own creation;

doing for me what no one would have ever thought.


Death be not what thou think I wanted

foolish ones, who thought they knew me

secrets kept-

only too come out once you all have “slept”.


Wishing for you to want me with the same desire

thinking it may be so,

after all, you may never know-


Shrieks I hear from down the hall

bouncing from wall to wall,

Should I run?

Or should I lie?

For I know that it has to be you that must die.


Across the bed, she is laid

only wishing that you would’ve stayed.

What I wouldn’t have given for just a glance,

at my wondrous creature.


Why did you leave, my true love?

Why not stay?

I know you must feel the same

or else why did you play my game?


Killing her for me,

because it was never meant to be;

at least not for her and I.


Will you be in my dreams tonight?

Or finally in my arms,

where I can hold you through the night?


Wishing, waiting, wanting-

for none other than you.

What else are secret lovers supposed to do?


I think of you every night,

with a little bit of spite-

I must admit,

it saddened me that you were the one who got to end it all.

And yet you won’t be the one to give me your all.

My distorted memory is all I have,

was it really me that wanted her gone?

The question I am left to ponder

Yes, but why was it you who got the honor?


My wife she was,

Nothing to you, maybe even nothing to me;

I still don’t understand what made you flee.


Bound to both, in separate ways

what am I to do now but count my days?

Until I see you again, I say this now


I loved you

and I love you

she gave me time

but I gave you life

forever battling to be my wife.

Dear Reader,

For this creative project, I decided to rewrite the scene of Elizabeth’s death into a poem. In my poem, I go into a different way to look at this scene, by making it seem like Victor wanted his wife to die. I made it seem like he had the creature kill her, in order for them to be together. I believed that this was one of the more crucial scenes throughout the novel, and by reworking it as a poem would help to convey even more of an emotional aspect. I want you, my readers to imagine Victor himself reading this poem aloud, to hear the tone of his voice and how it goes from sadness in the first stanza to mysterious in the second stanza to longing in the third and so on and so forth. Victor addresses Elizabeth directly only once throughout the poem, the rest of the time he is speaking more to the creature and questioning himself. The final stanza of the poem helps reflect that Victor was able to love Elizabeth, but was also in love with his creation, the way a mother has a bond with her child. This portrays the idea of Victor being jealous that he couldn’t give birth. The title of the poem is “My Two Loves” of course referring to Elizabeth and the creature reflects on Victor’s undecidedness. It was clear Victor never planned on spending his life with Elizabeth, which makes sense as to why he would want her dead, he was a little forced into the marriage. In class, we discussed with the dream scene how it demonstrated that Victor didn’t want Elizabeth because she wasn’t his mother but in fact, he wanted the creature. I wanted to keep the creature taking off after killing Elizabeth in this poem because I believe it helps demonstrate how Victor longed for what he couldn’t have.

-Alina Cantero

Love Hurts

Rilee Hoch

Victor’s Creature spoke, “Let me tell you the story of a young foreign girl and a poor family, whom I came across during my journey through the USA. Then, perhaps you will understand how I came to feel emotion and see why I hope you will simply leave me to suffer this life alone in the wilderness.”

So Victor replied, “I will entertain you, please go ahead and tell your tale.”

The Creature began saying, “I had stumbled upon a poor neighborhood in America and taken to watching one poor family from a small shack near their home. One cold morning Felix looked more desolate than ever. He grasped his phone with white knuckles as he paced around the cottage. He allowed a few tears to escape, but quickly wiped them away. He eventually became so upset he threw his phone outside onto the concrete. I leapt out of my hiding place and grabbed the phone off the ground. As I inspected the device I discovered that the screen was cracked but the words were still legible. I had slowly learned how to use technology from observing Felix and his sister Agatha, so I was able to determine what information the phone contained. Felix was deeply in love with a woman named Safie who lived in a foreign nation called Turkey. He had gone there to work, and when he saw Safie walking along with her father on the street he quickly fell in love. Sadly he had to return to the States and Safie’s father would not approve of their marriage. Safie then spent over a year trying to get a visa so she could legally immigrate to the United States and be with Felix, but just as all her paperwork was to be finalized the president decided to tighten the immigration policies. She started to gather up funds to pay someone bring her over illegally. Her father found out about her secret plans to run away to the States and he immediately gave her away to be married. With assistance from a foreign help group, Safie escaped from the arranged marriage and entered the country. However, soon after she settled down with her lover an organization named ICE began separating friends and family all over the country, and Safie was quickly taken away from Felix. He had been actively communicating with her over the phone through social media and texts, which I discovered on his phone. When Safie stopped responding and posting, Felix asked a close friend to inquire about her whereabouts. Felix had been reading a text from his friend, who had managed to locate Safie. She had been arrested at a protest, and then sentenced to spend time in prison. After getting into a fight with the guards, Safie had been wrongfully beaten to death. Their story of failed love has opened my eyes to a life of isolation from humanity, and the immigration policies Safie had fought so strongly against showed me the true cruelty of this world”. The creature then produced Felix’s phone and handed it to Victor with a melancholy expression.

To the Publisher:

I decided to reimagine Felix and Safie’s love story in a manner opposite to the original text. In the original text of Frankenstein Safie and Felix overcome all the difficulties that cross their path. You can call me a pessimist, but that seems improbable, so to make it more realistic I applied a commentary on modern gender roles and our current immigration policy. This is a version of the same story, but one in which the ending is tragic and instead of learning of love and happiness the Creature is exposed to the cruel reality of our modern world. In contrast to the ease of her border crossing shown in the original text, crossing the United States border would be more difficult for Safie. I wanted to showcase how immigrants in the United States, whether legal or illegal, face immense discrimination from not only the people but from our justice system as well. I chose to create the accompanying Instagram posts written by Safie because in the original text the Creature produces letters as proof of Safie and Felix’s story. However, letters are old fashioned and most members of our modern society communicate via text or forms of social media. Another contrast is the character of Safie, in my version she is a strong-willed feminist and social activist, rather than a meek girl seeking her validation from Felix. The only theme I desired to remain the same between my version of Frankenstein and the original text was the deep and passionate love Felix and Safie feel for each other. The Creatures attitude towards his future still changes after seeing the happy couple. Yet, instead of developing a desire for a female companion he is scared by the events and wants live in isolation away from the horrors of humanity. Overall their love will have opposing outcomes, and thus affect the Creature and Victor in different ways, but for better or worse love remains at the center of the story. 

Was Frankenstein transgender?

Jessica Rae Fisher explores the transgender community and establishes a few connections within Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein. Her connections are very important to the audience given that the creation’s gender was never fully established throughout the novel. Though in some parts of the novel he may appear “masculine” which would explain why the pronoun he and him are used to refer to him in the novel, there is no other evidence shown to us that proves he is in fact a male. For this reason, we are able to identify more connections between the creation and transgender people than our first glance at this book after reading Jessica’s essay.  In the novel, Victor is constantly isolated from his loved ones and has to live with the absence of his mother. However, it seems to be that his need of fulfilling his maternal needs leads him to an obsession and reality check at the same time. For instance in the novel, Victor unconsciously has an unpleasant sexual dream with his mother. His dream begins of seeing Elizabeth’s beautiful face and somehow Elizabeth’s face rearranged to look like Caroline, Victor’s mother. Victor’s sexuality can be triggered by this fact given that he was obsessive over beauty and looks, specifically womens. Victor did not love elizabeth as a sister, rather he was in love with her beauty and appearance. In the same way, Victor was also triggered by the fact that as a male he was not able to reproduce and birth life. This indifference lead him to scientifically give life and create his creature through exhausting research and experiments. “Victor demolished his creation of a female creature to give to the male creature because he truly believed that if he were to do so the creatures would crave to have “children, and a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth” (Shelley 144). This quote proves Victor is envious of the fact that women can conceive children and he cannot. Victor’s obsession to conceive a child hints at his wish to become a woman. There are many examples that may or may not lead to the creation’s true gender beliefs, but as readers we may never be sure because we are not given much evidence as to what he might or not be.


By Dalia Ulloa

An Affection



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Christopher Martinez

On page 60 of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, there is an insight into Victor Frankenstein’s imagination. After creating the creature that unsatisfied him he decides to go to sleep. In his dream, he starts to imagine kissing Elizabeth, but he then starts to imagine his dead mother’s facial features on Elizabeth. It is as if he desires his mothers love. Sigmund Freud, a psychoanalyst, finds an explanation for this; he calls it Oedipus Complex. This states that when a boy child is born they have their mother’s love conquered, however, when as time goes by they seem to keep wanting their mothers to love. The grown-up child then starts to have the feeling of eliminating whatever is splitting the mothers love away – the father.

Although the thought of having affection for a mother isn’t as weird as it seems, the way Freud describes it isn’t something we hear about often. When Victor Frankenstein says, “I embraced her, but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death,” (pg. 60) there is clearly a personal imagination Victor has in his head that is affecting his real life. It is as Victor is somewhat trying to replace the love with his mother with one other close one; in this case being Elizabeth. Additionally, there is a connection between Victor and the monster itself. There is a presence of paradox in this section of the book. Throughout the beginning of the story Victor sees the creation of the monster as an accomplishment, yet it is actually his affection for his dead mother. I can also see how this relates to most students at UC Merced. Especially now that everyone is in college, I see how people miss their mother’s presence and love. The point is this: can this be connected back to the Oedipus Complex?


Equality for All

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Christopher Martinez

As citizens in a society, we tend to have the divisions in gender and class. There are laws in the nation, but sometimes the ones with power can find the loopholes to innocence (just like in the French Revolution). In Mary Wollstonecraft’s writing, A Vindication of the Rights of Men, she strongly makes a stance for gender and class equality. She makes several points about her views such as in the quote, “To say the truth, I not only tremble for the souls of women, but for the good-natured man, whom everyone loves” (48). She wants to create the idea where there is no advantage in society. In other words, she stands with the common citizen during the French Revolution.

Frankenstein shows the injustice of class and gender within Mary Shelley’s time. When Justine gets convicted of the murder of William we see the injustice that is happening. It is as if Justine is representing the continuation and sacrifice of the French Revolution by the common man in the quote, “Farewell, sweet lady, dearest Elizabeth, my beloved and only friend; may Heaven, in its bounty, bless and preserve you; may this be the last misfortune that you will ever suffer! Live, and be happy, and make others so” (84). The way Justine sounds when she says goodbye is as if she is making a sacrifice for the happiness of her family. In addition, there is a motif of courageousness in a woman in this part of the story. Justine isn’t afraid of her death. Mary Shelley is showing the strength in Justine. Likewise, Mary Wollstonecraft expresses the strength of a woman in her writing. She states, “If beautiful weakness be interwoven in a women’s frame, if the chief business of her life be (as you insinuate) to inspire love, and Nature has made an eternal distinction between the qualities that signify a rational being and this animal perfection, her duty and happiness in this life must clash with any preparation for a more exalted state” (48). Mary Wollstonecraft dedicates this part in her writing to state that a woman is equal to everyone; in this way, there can be a prosperous state. The idea of a woman standing up and not being afraid of anything is pretty clear. Finally, Mary Wollstonecraft dismisses the idea of the common nature of woman. She says words like, “little, smooth, delicate,” (47) aren’t the respectful words for a woman for she is powerful! Connecting this to times like today, it is as if there is no change in how we see a man, woman, and class. The Revolution for change hasn’t ended!


Before being introduced to Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein” I had, what seems to be very common, misconceptions of the story about the creature. The first and most commonly incorrect held belief has to do with the name mishap that exists about “Frankenstein” itself. Growing up, and up until very recently, I believed that the creature himself was named Frankenstein when in reality, that is not the case. The reality is that the scientist who conjured up the being and brought him to life is named Victor Frankenstein and the creature himself has no given name. I held this idea for a very long time and was only corrected due to the reading of the novel and it came as a big surprise when I learned the truth. I realized that if something so simple and such a small detail could have been greatly altered and lead to such a long-time held misconception, then there was bound to be many other myths I was exposed to about the creature and the story of “Frankenstein”.

Aside from simply misnaming him all of these years, there were greater misconceptions that I held regarding his characteristics. As a child, I was exposed to the representation of the creature that mainstream media portrayed and created. I watched films and cartoons that mislead me to view Victor Frankenstein’s creation in a completely opposite manner than how Mary Shelley had written him to be. Before engaging with the novel, I held the belief that because the creature was created through science and in a laboratory – through the use of electricity – that he was a soulless being with the inability to care for others or have a necessity for love. However, in the novel we learn that Frankenstein’s creation longs to feel accepted, loved, and grows to feel isolated and alone in the world. For someone who always believed that such a creature was incapable of having any feelings, I grew to sympathize with the creature through the novel when I learned that he grows to long for a companion in the world so he would not have to face it alone – a very human being characteristic that I never expected him to posses. Rather than the soulless creature every platform of the media portrayed him as, it was interesting, and rather nice, to find out that in reality Dr. Frankenstein’s creation was capable of feeling and that the audience was capable of sympathizing with the monster.

In addition, I think the greatest long-held misconception I had about the monster was regarding the idea that he was an uneducated and unintelligent creature. However, through Mary Shelley’s novel I learned that he educates himself and soon enough, has vocabulary and knowledge as advanced and eloquent as his genius creator. In all of my years before reading the novel, I always had a misbelief of the creature being unintelligent and incredibly dense. The cartoons I watched always portrayed him as something that was unable to conjure an intelligent thought or even form a coherent sentence and I actually found it somewhat refreshing to find out that was not the case. When I read the novel and discovered that the creature was rather intelligent and had a very sophisticated way of speaking and thinking, it shifted my perspective and point of view that I held about this creature for such a long time before the reading of the novel. This, along with the other debunked myths, made me realize that Mary Shelley designed this creature to have more human qualities than one would imagine. What Shelley’s novel taught me is that the creature is extremely man-like and holds just as much knowledge and potential as an ordinary human being and therefore, is just as dangerous as mankind.

-Beverly Miranda

Christopher Martinez



Before I start this blog I want whoever is reading this to go to Thesaurus.com and find synonyms for the word monster. One of the synonyms is Frankenstein, however he is clearly not a monster in Mary Shelley’s book Frankenstein. Whenever I think of Frankenstein all I imagine is a monster that kills and has no soul. I fell for the typical classification of Frankenstein being shown as malevolent. Likewise, the video for my blog is to show others the cliché that the monster is an ugly and a destructive monster.

Throughout the book, Mary Shelley describes the monster as a person who is innocent and is wanting to love someone. From the beginning of chapter eleven, the monster tells Victor Frankenstein his story up to that point. We learn from the monsters stories that he is an intellectual person who seeks knowledge about everything. The monster reads the books that Victor had in his jacket. These romantic books gave the monster a view of the world he lived in. He knew a lot what humans desired in life. The monster also looked for attention, but everyone seemed to be anxious and afraid to have his presence. Since no one wanted his companionship he accepted himself as an outcast.

I can conclude that at this point I am starting to feel as if Frankenstein is every student right now. Every student is curious to try learning new things and use them in the real world, while also seeking attention and friendships. I realized at this point that the real monster this whole time was the fantasy I had learned about the misunderstood monster.


By- Marycarmen Nieto

I never really read the story about Frankenstein until reading Mary Shelley’s novel. It was shocking to find out that the creature wasn’t actually called Frankenstein but it was his creator’s name, Victor Frankenstein. The myths I would hear about Frankenstein (creature) was that he was an ugly scary monster and was evil. In reality, Frankenstein just wanted to love humans and be their friends to protect them and be with them. But the humans were not friendly to him because they had never seen anyone like him before and labeled him as a monster. In this novel, I learned how Frankenstein actually had a heart and emotions just like a human. When he told his side of the story it made me really sympathized with him. This novel challenged my stereotypes of the myth because it showed me that he had real feelings. He was no different from a human.

All Frankenstein really wanted was to love and be loved. We can’t really blame him for wanting that because we all want to feel a little love. I agree with Daniel, that the real creature is Victor. Victor let him suffer all by himself and was ashamed of his creation since the moment he was brought to life. The stereotypes about Frankenstein do not represent his true character, he was much more than a monster. He was a human stuck in the wrong body. The picture I chose represents how Frankenstein is supposed to be mean and evil-looking but in reality, he is as soft as the material this toy is made out of.