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giovedì 27 dicembre 2007
martedì 4 dicembre 2007
1847
George Boole became famous with his mathematical logic...
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Bianca Lodà
Concerning the 19th-century Science and tecnology...
What's happened in the 19th-century????
Mrs Hilary introduced this period with the intention of involving our aims into It...
and so...
Here there are our works divided for years: each of us had a particular year in order to highlight the principal aspects concerning an event...
Enjoy with our files!!!!
class 5b
Interfering with Nature
Some consideration on the topic of NATURE with reference to Frankenstein and the figure of the MONSTER in this presentation: Interfering with Nature.
The red dress
It was
That evening has started strangely. It was still soon, but that evening was very cold for being only that time.
Everything started one hour before when I was gone to my bed because I didn't feel very well and, notwithstanding It was the Halloween-eve, I wanted to stay alone without my friends. We were into a strange manor lent by Martin' s uncle, my best friend that was a bizarre short-man with a mania of dressing always with black and white colour, preferring a check pattern. I sometimes asked my friend some information of him but he always reassured me that he was only a few crazy because his wife was murdered near there when they were married only just few months... I was nothing calm!
The night seemed that was quiet: I went to my big bed but, after some minutes, a frightful breeze passed near my body as It wanted to wake up me. I straightened up, panic-stricken, panting because I dreamt as If somebody was into my room, but there weren't anybody, only a not-well closed door. I was too much nervous to return into my bed so I decided to go out my room for a walk: I wanted to find my friends; I feel the necessity in that moment to stay with somebody.
I heard a stroke: now It was
I decided to enter inside, but another thing was happened: the handle of the door was going to melt but I managed in time to open It. The sight was terrible: each of my friends was off colour; the room, that before was well-decorated, now was totally grey with all the windows opened.
At first everything appeared without life in front of my incredulous eyes but after I saw a woman that I have not seen yet: she had beautiful brown curly hair and a spectacular red dress with a necklace of little diamonds but her face wasn't well-defined. I was interested by her, I wanted to ask her what's happened because she was alive differently by other. I was approaching her when I saw a photo near me: there were Martin's uncle hugged to that women.
There was a date near that image: 25th December 1965! I heard my heartbeat very well, It seemed that It was going to stop because It was very quick.
I started running away, I was scared by her! The strange woman was chasing me, now I was able to see her in face: she hadn't pupils but I was petrified by her glance. I was continued running but I felt down hitting my head.
I woke up with a start: I was into my room. I heard nine strokes: Is It
Was It only a dream? I didn't think It in fact I wanted to inform my friend about my dream.
I couldn't: I was terrified by what I had seen, because I had on me the red-shining dress of that woman!
Beatrice Del Bianco
The Night I met Emily the strange...
It was nine-thirty on Halloween eve as I cross the long entrance hall of the manor, I posed and then I went to the front door, opened it and stepped outside.
My friend Henry was absolutely right when he told me that the manor has been deserted for many years. I had just visited it, but I could not find anybody: all rooms were full of cobwebs and absolute silence reigned everywhere…
I had hardly come out when a trumpet blast coming from inside called my attention. I couldn't believe my ears, I posed, but any sound was repeated... Firstly I thought it was a result of my imagination, but as I started walking to come back home, I heard a sound of violin. No doubt it was a real sound, so I turned round abruptly and I went back to the entrance hall.
The sound was getting louder and louder and suddenly it turned into a sweet music. It was so fascinating and I was so curious to find out who was playing the instrument that I decided to follow the sweet notes: they were coming from the left, where a long passage linked the kitchen and the living room... next to the kitchen there was a little red door that I didn't see before. The music was coming from there!!!
I plucked my courage and I opened the creaking door. Narrow stairs conducted me to a narrow corridor, that ended with another door... behind was a big curtain, and as I drew it I was overcome by wonder: in front of me there was a small ancient theatre full of masked people dancing everywhere. What a weird party!!! The crowd dragged me to the dance floor, I was completely confused... anyway... I started to dance. I met many nice people and a really beautiful girl, Emily.
Towards
I turned my head and I saw another tomb with the name of another boy present at the masked ball...
I couldn't believe it: I was surrounded by tombs of people with the same name and the same aspects of people that were dancing in the theatre!
Suddenly I turned my head to tell Emily, but...
She was heaving a tomb's cover and quickly she slipped into the grave.
The manor was again quiet and deserted.
Valentina Rizzo
Gothic in Halloween
It was 21.30 on Halloween’s eve as I crossed the long entrance hall of the manor. I posed and then i went to the front door,opened it and stepped outside.
In the garden of manor it was cold and the wind blown between the branchs of a cypress,that alone and dark stayed in front me close to a marmoreus tombstone.
Unfortunately I didn’t see any inscriptions ,because much weed held the vision but I could read an epitaph :”Your leaving made us sad”.
I’ve heard by local people (the village named “
I had moreover my sound recorder and I thought was excited try to record all possible sound and analyse it,for showing the esistance of spirits.But local people saw bad me for this enterprise.They wasn’t wrong,what pressed a business man,like me,to search ghost whispears?However I played the sound recorder and while the mechanism made a creaking slowly,I was drawn up by the old keeper and he told me to go away,because his lord couldn’t go here.
I went to hotel it was only 22.30 and I wasn’t tired therefore I started to analyse the the tape in low frequence for listening the sounds.During the listen the light put out and from the recorder I perceived a strange sound,not definite,neuter who syllabified with difficoulty <<”H....He....Helpppppp....F....Freeee...Meeeee”>>.By now I was here without breathe ,in front me the darkness, only the red light of machine lighted partially the face.In a moment I heard..Toc Toc..somebody knocked the door.The door slowly was opened by a man.<
The next morning I went to Mr.Winehouse’es home for talking about business.The place as well day was spectral: in corridors there were more painting and much silence.I re-met the old keeper,who had drawn me up,and this announced me to his lord my presence.
After having seen a sculpure on the desk who had form of a chimera I asked about the chimera and he responded he had been very attractive by the mitological animal since he was a child,then I started to speak with Mr.Winehouse about my company but he noticed my tiredness and asked me why I was so tired.I didn’t want to tell my esperience like this I said I was very tired for the work travel but it was like he didn’t believe in me.
I was very excited because I was talking with a boss of a great metallurgic company very profitable who in the last 30 years dominated this sector,before 1980 Mr.Winehouse divided the society with an another chief Antony Warnock ,who disappered in mystereus circumstances.
During the conversation Mr.Winehouse apologized and went away,I stayed here and noticed an old book.Oddly I started to strip the leaves and I saw a note and I discovered a proof who incriminated Mr.Winehouse for the presumed kill of Antony Warnock.The kill of Warnock was necessary because the victim found his member stole money from the factory and he wanted denunce the crimin to police.The body was buried in Family Winehouse’s chapel for don’t get alarm anybody.Therefore this voice was of ... .I was discovered in flagrant by Mr.Winehouse and with a mistereous ospitality invited me to follow him.I was terrified by this behaviour and moved back until my feet butted against something ,I felt a stroke on the head and felt faint.
I woke up in a dark room and tied up a chair dressed with an unknown stuff, there was a smell of death. The chamber was illuminated and I saw an orrible show : tortureous machines,blooded baldes and then animal heads and limbs.
Closed in a box-room,no exit ,prisoner not of a criminal but of a mad psicopatic,he was ready to kill and dissect me for his fun, I was taken by a great sense of despair.
When I saw his shape I removed the fear and took the swiss knife for cutting secretally the rope.The man stopped in front me with a blade and confessed the omicide and having dress again the chair with Warnock’s skin opportunally conserved,at last he was happy saying me my head could be wonderful on his new”creature” like a new chimera.
I could cut the rope,he tried to bit me,the rope confused him and I bit to his heart and fell down,after a low agony died.The old keeper saw the death lord ,made crazy and screaming cut his veins. I was alive, my breath was a little animated in front of my eyes the materialization of madness.
The police arrived just for seeing the orrible scene and recovering the bodies,asking me the dinamic,policemen considered me a lucky man and they was agree.
Days later I revisited the garden all was normal and yet there was a sort of strange atmosphere and I heard a whispear say :<
Leonardi Luca
Halloween!
It was the nine-thirty on Halloween eve as I cross the long entrance hall of the manor I paused and then I went to the front door, opened it and stepped outside.
The air was cold and bracing, it was already night: the fog surrounded the big park of the house and the path for the entrance was less illuminated. I was tired because I had worked all the afternoon and evening for decorating the leased house for the Halloween party: a fancy-dress party in which all the guests had to dress up as their favourite horror characters; my dress was beautiful and I would have been the ghost of the young Countess of the Radicofani’s Castle.
I don’t know the reason why I couldn’t find the gate of the park, maybe I was so tired or maybe for the absent illumination, but I realized that I get lost in the enormous labyrinth of the garden.
Firstly, I decided to find a way out, obviously it was impossible and so I decided to call my brother with my mobile phone, but in that area there wasn’t stray field and I couldn’t phone or send text messages. For this reason I thought that the most intelligent thing to do was to cry out looking for the help of somebody who maybe was walking not far from there.
It was getting colder and colder and it was so late, the thing that disturbed me so much was the fact that I was alone and I hadn’t any contact with anybody and I wanted to return to my home.
Suddenly, I heard a voice: a hope kindled again in my breast. It was a hoarse voice and it seemed so far from me and I decided to get near to the place from which it arrived, but I didn’t manage to find anybody. Then, all at once, I heard it so close to me: it was behind my shoulder and it was a dismal whisper next to my ear; I felt a quiver of fear.
I sprang round, asking who the person that talked to me was, but I didn’t see anybody, only a shadow that merged into the fog. I tried to call again, but nothing and nobody gave me an answer, so I thought that it was only all the work of my imagination.
For this reason I decided to pick up again the way for the exit, when I saw another time that fuzzy shadow floating in the air among the hedges of the park, therefore, it wasn’t my imagination, I could really see it.
“Who are you…who are you?” I asked insistently until the whisper replied to me: “It is me…”; “But, me who” I asked again: he was turning around me when he said that he was the manor’s owner.
I shuddered: everybody in town knew that the owner was dead a lot of years ago and his house had been bought by a club that organizes events and parties.
I had to flee, I couldn’t stay anymore in that damned place, so I started to run away trying to exit from that labyrinth, but at last I fell down unconscious for the too much effort.
When I woke up I was inside the manor, in a room that I haven’t seen during the preparation and close to me there was ghost who was fluttering in the air: he was looking as a young, elegant and gentlemanly man. I got up from the bed and tried to find a door to escape, by chance I passed in front of a mirror and I looked to my reflected figure: I noticed that I was wearing my Countess’ dress.
The first words that he said to me after my awakening were: “This night you will be my wife”.
This time the only thing that I could do was to yield: it was impossible for me to get out from the house because the ghost was always so close to me.
So, at last, after get dressed, I followed him in the room that I had decorated for my Halloween’s party, and there the ceremony was celebrated: without delay he swore eternal love to me, I also said a feeble “yes” racked with sobs and with the tears in my eyes. As we became husband and wife the bells started to ring: it was so deafening and irritating that the noise entered in my head and started to resound inside of me; it became always lauder and lauder, always higher and higher and I couldn’t resist anymore!
I had only dreamt.
Beatrice Zanella
The black dog
The time of this modern novel come for everybody. It isn’t an old story but contain in its style all the gothic prerogatives.
In a time not too far from our there was a young kid who lives isolated in an enormous cottage in the deep country around
Finally the great night comes, the girl have to demonstrate the maturity to her parents remaining alone at home when they go to the theatre. She’s a bit frightened but her friend will stay with her. The dog is a beautiful, its coat is black, it has a proud attitude as all guard dogs. Despite the time is terrible, the raindrops taps on the windows and the wind blow strongly the parents live the house…live their beautiful daughter.
The girl is happy…the rain noise covers all strange noises. She prepare her self before going to sleep, the faithful friend follow her in all the parts of the home.
The bed is warm, the rain that meanwhile reduce its noise become a sweet music for sleeping.
It’s one o clock, the parents aren’t at home…a new noise comes from the bathroom. The fear is decreased by the dog that immediately licks her hand under the bed. “oh I’m so stupid, I’ve forgotten the water open” thinks the young woman. She goes to the bathroom. The girl opens the light in the room. The head of her dog, divided by the body in the bath, is hanged to a noose, under is wrote: “not only the dogs are able to lick”
Luca Libertini
Menu: Ghost or Horror story...?
To everybody's enjoyment, Mr Hilary has proposed us the writing of a story with a ghost or horror content, starting with one of these outlines....
"It was 21.30 on Halloween's eve as I crossed the long entrance hall of the manor. I posed and then i went to the front door,opened it and stepped outside."
Here's what we have invented!
Have Fun!
Creator vs Creature
The story of Frankenstein talks about a man who defies God giving life to a death corpse. He makes himself a creator, he substitutes himself incautiously for God and creates a new life.
His experiment, which at the beginning seems only a fundamental discovery for the human kind, becomes a tragedy. Frankenstein isn’t up to God: differently from who created the world, he gives life to a corpse and abandons the creature in a world which isn’t ready to accept him.
It is wrong to considering this creature “monster”, because when the scientist makes him alive he isn’t a bad being, he has only an ugly aspect. Frankenstein is frightened when understands what done: he was so excited for the experiment that didn’t consider the consequences of his discovery. The real monster is the scientist who abhors his creature and abandons him.
The creature is like a child: he knows nothing, he isn’t able to articulate a speech, he needs father’s help. His father refuses him, like the rest of the world. The rejected would be only like others and be loved, while the first person who has to make him feel accepted goes away frightened.
The creature is thrown out by all human being, nobody accepts him, except a blind man (but his family will throw out “the monster”). The rejected becomes bad, above all because hasn’t a father who takes care of him. So the creature suffers and his terrible sorrow makes him a cruel killer who murders innocents.
He can’t be absolved, but has to be underline that the real responsible for the murderers is Frankenstein. It is the creator who decides to give life to a corpse and abandons him, he could not have done such a thing! Frankenstein is free to do what he wants, also to create a new being, his creature has no choice: he doesn’t decide to live by himself.
The creature is subordinated to the creator, and this second is the only reason of the first’s life. Superficially Frankenstein creates a being who proves sensation and feelings.
The creature wants only someone who loves him, he wouldn’t be rejected by Frankenstein, so he follows his father. Despite the fact that he hates Frankenstein because he abandoned him, when the creator dyes he proves a terrible sorrow: he remains alone on the earth.
Silvia Vecchio
Relationship between Shelley and Frankenstein
In the best seller “Frankenstein” written by Mary Shelley, the scientist Victor Von Frankenstein is seen as the Modern Prometheus, in other words, as who is managed to give a new life; in fact Mary Shelley modified the original title of the story into the “Modern Prometheus”. for this reason Frankenstein could be considered an ambitious man: he challenges the Faith for his own pride as a sort of revenge for the untimely death of his mother. He wants to substitute himself to God becoming the Creator of a new life.
Frankenstein achieves his objective joining together part of dead human body and animating them with electrical impulses: in this way it is made in laboratory a Creature, an horrible monster for its appearance.
The scientist, at the very first sight of the monster, is satisfied for the success of his experiment, but, immediately after, he is terrified by its ugliness: it has a dull look and watery eyes, it has a diabolic body worse than a mummy and it doesn’t worth to have a name; the thing that he had desire for a long time, gives him only fear and disgust, so Frankenstein decides to leave the laboratory in Ingolstadt and return to Geneva, deserting his creature.
At the end o f the story Frankenstein still considers the monster as a beast, as a devil and he thinks that the cruelty of the creature rose up by the single part of its body: in fact, the scientist uses corpses of thieves and killers, so the devilish instinct is considered to be already inside of the monster, and consequently, the monster must be brutal.
The Creature, probably, wouldn’t have released its devil side if it had found or had someone who would had tough how to live and relate itself with the people: when it comes out from the laboratory, all the people who meet the monster, are scared by its physical aspect, and, in this way it is avoided and isolated by everybody; only an old blind peasant feels that even this human being has a heart, could have emotions and it isn’t a cruel beast.
The trigger of its cruelty starts in the monster when it understands that he was left alone by its “father”, Doctor Frankenstein: the reject unchain in the Creature an enormous sense of anger and revenge, and, in this way it looses its evil side, suffocating the good part.
So, Frankenstein is the modern Prometheus but he has a negative role in the society: he releases hate in the world through his creature that represents the evil side of the scientist. The delirium of the man for the omnipotence is the ambition to be the Creator as God, but not to be the Father of the creature that is born.
Science and Mary Shelley
Victor Frankenstein is a man who dedicates his life to science: in particular when he’s adult, he leaves from Geneva in order to study into the University of that Period: in this way It can see two different aspects concerning the scientific studies, here It can just know the conflict between the ancient alchemy and the new science born with Galilei and continued with Newton, Keplero, and, first of all for Mary Shelley, Galvani.
During the 19th century Galvani was one of the most important scientists of that century, who helped to answer to one of the most interesting question of that period that was: “Is It possible to resuscitate dead men?”
Galvani and so Victor Frankenstein too, uses the electricity in order to bring them to life?” Victor thinks that his “daemon” is a “life’s spark” but also a being that could speak, think, read, have sensations: in this way Mary Shelley explains how he could be a reborn creature thanks to electricity, to the scientific studies.
I think now It could talk about the relationship between The Bible and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. At the beginning God created a perfect being, because he wanted to create a man in his own image and likeness. Victor, instead, creates a horrible creature, in particular the doctor becomes to a “God on the world”.
The writer takes a part into this discussion, because she thinks It is a terrible aspect of the life, It is horrible to make reborn something that has just died.In particular she highlights this aspect when Victor doesn’t use only one body for his experiments ( I’m not talking about the last part of the work, when he re-use the body of Elizabeth in order to have his lover after her death), but pieces of some bodies in order to explain the Horror of that thing.
Creating a being isn’t a good thing: at the end of the work, the monster was considered itself a miserable, in particular because, after a lot of time, it didn’t know why It was living: Mary Shelley wants to highlight how terrible creating is died being, also the monster is sad for its life.
Beatrice Del Bianco
The Role Of Science in Frankenstein
Mary Shelley, through “Frankenstein”, besides dealing with the horror story of a monster, wants to generate in the reader a reflection on the role of science in the 19th century.
I think the novel is an accusation against the aberrations that an inappropriate use of science could conduct in the future.
Mary wrote this book in a period in which lots of people were involved in studying human body. In those years an important contribute was also given by Galvani, who discovered the animal bioelettricity. This Italian scientist observed that a stimulation of a frog's nerve causes contraction of the muscle to which it is attached. The scientific community was excited by the potential use of this new force and research was conducted throughout Europe on the application of electricity to induce and sustain life. Obviously Mary could not know how to animate life in enough detail to write it in the book; in fact there isn’t a precise description.
Victor Frankenstein, as a young boy, becomes obsessed with studying theories about what gives humans their life spark; in this, he reflects the tendencies of that period.
He becomes absorbed in the quest to find out what creates life. After many researches he believes he has discovered the secret of generating life and decides to create a living being from parts of dead bodies. Victor applies experiments with electricity and he uses amniotic liquid to give life to the monster.
However, the creature he generates turns out to be a destructive and homicidal “demon”.
So the novel can be seen as a critique of male rationalism, of the negative potentiality of science.
I agree with Mary Shelley, thinking that scientific discoveries not always have a positive result, not always they bear useless conclusion; science must be controlled by reason, otherwise it can destroy the same person who used it to overcome human limits.
Modern day science deals daily with the exact problems of which Shelley was aware.
She introduces ethics to the study of science, and I think that she writes literature to act as science's conscious: the novel continues to resonate with readers to this day because of its criticism of science without conscience.
It was as if she acknowledged that the future of science, if uncontrolled, could be disastrous.
The book serves to warn readers, both past and current, of our own powers.
It was almost as if Mary Shelley in 1818 could see nearly 200 years into the future, recognising that our scientific discoveries of nuclear weapons and cloning could eventually be our demise.
I think the novel is an accusation against the aberrations that an inappropriate use of science could conduct in the future.
Mary wrote this book in a period in which lots of people were involved in studying human body. In those years an important contribute was also given by Galvani, who discovered the animal bioelettricity. This Italian scientist observed that a stimulation of a frog's nerve causes contraction of the muscle to which it is attached. The scientific community was excited by the potential use of this new force and research was conducted throughout Europe on the application of electricity to induce and sustain life. Obviously Mary could not know how to animate life in enough detail to write it in the book; in fact there isn’t a precise description.
Victor Frankenstein, as a young boy, becomes obsessed with studying theories about what gives humans their life spark; in this, he reflects the tendencies of that period.
He becomes absorbed in the quest to find out what creates life. After many researches he believes he has discovered the secret of generating life and decides to create a living being from parts of dead bodies. Victor applies experiments with electricity and he uses amniotic liquid to give life to the monster.
However, the creature he generates turns out to be a destructive and homicidal “demon”.
So the novel can be seen as a critique of male rationalism, of the negative potentiality of science.
I agree with Mary Shelley, thinking that scientific discoveries not always have a positive result, not always they bear useless conclusion; science must be controlled by reason, otherwise it can destroy the same person who used it to overcome human limits.
Modern day science deals daily with the exact problems of which Shelley was aware.
She introduces ethics to the study of science, and I think that she writes literature to act as science's conscious: the novel continues to resonate with readers to this day because of its criticism of science without conscience.
It was as if she acknowledged that the future of science, if uncontrolled, could be disastrous.
The book serves to warn readers, both past and current, of our own powers.
It was almost as if Mary Shelley in 1818 could see nearly 200 years into the future, recognising that our scientific discoveries of nuclear weapons and cloning could eventually be our demise.
Valentina Rizzo
Frankenstein!!!!
One of our recent topic has concerned the GOTHIC NOVEL, its origin and development and, actually, the figure of Frankenstein through fiction and movies is the one on which we have concentrated most of all.Mary Shelley published anonimously her novel Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus in 1818.
The idea of writing a fightful story came into her mind after the competition with a group of friends who had gathered at her husband's country house on the banks of Lake Geneve.
Among them there were Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron and his friend Polidori who wrote The Vampire, a novelette published in 1819 which marked the passage from GOTHIC to HORROR story.
Students have written compositions focusing on two specific aspects of the novel Frankenstein:
a) The relationship CREATOR/CREATURE
b) The role of SCIENCE in the 18th and 19th century
lunedì 3 dicembre 2007
Journey to the past...
Welcome everybody!
Today we would like to remember one of the most beautiful work that we've done last year with Mrs. Hilary...
We've some advertising for you... have a good vision!!
Enjoy!!!!
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