ARGUMENT RECONSTRUCTION

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Exercise One:

Read the following paragraph from Frankenstein, Volume II, Chapter IX (p. 98 in the Norton Critical Edition), each sentence of which is numbered.  This paragraph contains an argument.  Indicate which sentences are relevant to that argument and which are not, and then compare your answers to the key.  (We will be using this paragraph throughout this stage.)

 

(1) "You are in the wrong," replied the fiend; "and, instead of threatening, I am content to reason with you. (2) I am malicious because I am miserable; am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? (3) You, my creator, would tear me to pieces, and triumph; remember that, and tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me? (4) You would not call it murder, if you could precipitate me into one of those ice-rifts, and destroy my frame, the work of your own hands. (5) Shall I respect man, when he contemns me? (6) Let him live with me in the interchange of kindness, and, instead of injury, I would bestow every benefit upon him with tears of gratitude at his acceptance. (7) But that cannot be; the human senses are insurmountable barriers to our union. (8) Yet mine shall not be the submission of abject slavery. (9) I will revenge my injuries: if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear; and chiefly towards you my arch-enemy, because my creator, do I swear inextinguishable hatred. (10) Have a care: I will work at your destruction, nor finish until I desolate your heart, so that you curse the hour of your birth. ... (11) What I ask of you is reasonable and moderate. (12) I demand a creature of another sex ...."

-- The creature to Victor Frankenstein, Frankenstein, p. 98

 

Key Argument
Reconstruction
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