Paired Texts > Excerpt from "Frankenstein": Chapter 10

In this monologue excerpted from Shelley's famous novel Frankenstein, the monster scolds the scientist for letting power cloud his judgment.

In this short story, a man known only as "the boss" tortures a fly because he feels powerless about his son's death.

In this poem, a desperate speaker begs the gods to deliver someone to love.

In "Miss Brill," a woman's day in the park has unexpected emotional consequences.

In "ChatGPT Resurrected My Dead Father," the author uses his personal grief and technological background to explore one aspect of developing a more "human-like" artificial intelligence. Pair Excerpt from “Frankenstein”: Chapter 10 with “ChatGPT Resurrected My Dead Father” and ask students to compare the acts of artificial creation, and their results, described in both texts. In “ChatGPT Resurrected My Dead Father,” how do the author’s feelings about the chatbot that he created change over time? Compare and contrast his feelings to those of Dr. Frankenstein in Excerpt from "Frankenstein": Chapter 10. When Dr. Frankenstein attempts to attack him, the monster says, “Remember, thou hast made me more powerful than thyself” (Paragraph 6). In what ways is the monster more powerful? Describe some of the ways in which AI is more powerful than humans, or has the potential to be. What would Dr. Frankenstein think of the creation of personalized chatbots? What might Mary Shelley think about them? Who is ultimately responsible if the ambitions of science go wrong?