The Characters

3rd Discussion: Please discussion the main characters you are encountering. Pay special attention to your much besieged heroine. You should also discuss in length the apparent hero (he may be Byronic, and you may wish to look into that to understand it better--Byronic Hero) and the obvious villain. Visit the other novel sites to see what your characters have in common with theirs; comment on those other sites. Include quotes and page numbers in your own discussion thread.


At this point many characters are beginning to enter the story. Emily and St. Aubert have been there for a while so we are beginning to really see into who they are while others such as Valancourt, Cheron, and Montoni.


Emily-She seems to be very lively and up spirited and it takes a lot to bring her down. She does to me seem a bit naive and has much of a child's mind. Any thoughts on if you see this changing or if maybe this helps with a later plot development? She is obviously the heroin or main character going forward. When she is sent to her Aunts she seems to be lost or in a place she doesn't want to be in the castle. At some point she will need to do something that changes her situation or someone else's for the better for me to define her as a heroin.
St. Aubert-He is a very melancholy man. He is in a place of serine but the depressing happenings around him bring him down, which brings up the idea of being somewhere perfect always has disadvantages and doesn't allow you to see the best part of life, and when you lose one of those parts it hits you hard (Miss Aubert)
Valancourt- He seems very likeable and doesn't seem as if anybody could hate him. He seems to be the focal point of Emily's love life(or crush at this point).
Cheron- The Aunt of Emily seems very heartless to Emily. Her brother may have just died, but that was also Emily's dad. She seems very belligerent towards Emily's wants and needs, and she only cares about herself.
Montoni- He doesn't seem to have much liking of his own wife. I believe he didn't marry her because he loves her, but because of what she owns. In the story I notice Italians like to come in and steal land from  people. Like with the attempt on St. Aubert and I believe that this is what Montoni's plan was all along.

Comparison with Frankenstein

1st Discussion: Our first topic of discussion concerns the set up of a Gothic novel. What does your novel have in common with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as far as text structure is concerned? Why is that structure important to the genre? Discuss the framework of your novel and why this structure is so important to gothic literature.


I found with comparison to Frankenstein that both novels started out peaceful in a life people would love to live, but then came along a death of a family member(Victor's mom and Emily's mom and later her dad)
and from that point things began to run down hill. Frankenstein made the monster and we kn ow how that ended, and Emily's life changed with moving in with her Aunt(?). 
Notably Poems were used in both pieces of literature most notably the nature surrounding that of Emily and her father. Poems were what Emily used to express herself using the nature around her.
At this point I'm not seeing MUCH identicalness between the too rather then the plot of the main character moving away from what they know to a dark unfamiliar place, which is the basis of Gothic Literature. 

1st Discussion(2nd topic)

 Topic: Your novels will cover several different settings. These settings include both the outdoors and the interiors of any castles / chateaus. Please discuss your various settings, using quotes to help support your theories. Remember to include page numbers with your quotes. Visit other sites to discover similarities and differences; comment on those other sites.

 

So, I think this would be a good Discussion to start on as our book opens with the setting.

 

The setting is peaceful and tranquil and I think it is where everyone would want to live. "they would seek one of these green recesses, which so beautifully adorn the bosom of these mountains, where, under the shade of the lofty larch, or cedar, they enjoyed their simple repast, made sweeter by the waters of the cool stream, that crept along the turf, and by the breath of wild flowers and aromatic plants, that fringed the rocks, and inlaid the grass."

 

Obviously the setting will change from peaceful to quite possibly frightning. So this discussion could be made into comparing the multiple setting to each other.