essay on monster for class 1

by Walter Dean Myers

• Monster Summary

Steve Harmon , the novel’s protagonist—and, at times, its narrator—is a sixteen-year-old African-American student from Harlem. At the beginning of the novel, the reader learns that Steve is in prison awaiting trial for his alleged involvement in a murder. He writes in his diary to pass the time, chronicling his observations and anxieties while imprisoned. As a coping mechanism, Steve records his daily life in the format of a film script. Steve’s lawyer, Kathy O’Brien, coaches him on what to expect during his court hearing. Both Steve and James King , another man allegedly involved in the murder, have entered a plea bargain and must testify in court.

Steve and James are cross-examined by Sandra Petrocelli , the State Prosecutor. In her opening statement, she brands the accused men as “monsters” for the crimes they’ve committed. The use of the word “monster” references the novel’s title and its overall thematic significance. As the trial progresses, more witnesses are called to the stand. The trial proceedings are interrupted by a series of snippets that explore the relationship between Steve and James. Some of the accounts suggest that Steve and James barely know one another, while others show James alleging that Steve was the gunman in the robbery. Osvaldo Cruz , a Latino gang member also implicated in the crime, explains that he was pressured to participate in the robbery due to threats by Richard “Bobo” Evans.

Steve begins to think about his parents and their reactions to his arrest. He feels his father’s disappointment and his mother’s anxiety. When Osvaldo is called to testify, he explains that Steve was meant to serve as the lookout for a burglary. Though the individuals indicted in the crime had no intention of killing Mr. Nesbitt, the reader learns that Mr. Nesbitt’s own gun—pulled out in self-defense—was then turned on him. During Bobo’s testimony, he asserts that James King was the individual who actually pulled the trigger, subsequently killing Mr. Nesbitt. Bobo also claims that he “barely knows” Steve, but that he was supposed to be the “lookout” at the crime scene.

A few bystanders that have been called to the stand recount that they have witnessed only two people at the scene of the crime. These two people are allegedly Bobo and Osvaldo. Using these testimonies, Asa Briggs , the lawyer for James King, argues that neither Steve nor James can be placed at the crime scene. Kathy O’Brien, Steve’s lawyer, is doubtful of her client’s innocence. However, she advises Steve to refrain from writing anything incriminating in his journal in the event that it is seized by the court. In addition, she tells Steve that he should emphasize the distance between himself and James in order to ensure his own innocence. During Steve’s testimony, he explains that he has no recollection of his whereabouts during the day of the crime. He utilizes his oblivion as evidence that he is uninvolved in the crime.

O'Brien highlights the conflicting eyewitness accounts, thus pointing to their inconclusiveness. Though some common testimonies frame Steve as the lookout during the crime, O’Brien explains that this role is highly distinct from “murderer.” O’Brien enlists George Sawicki , the advisor of Steve’s high school film club, to serve as a character witness. Mr. Sawicki paints a humane and upright image of Steve to the jury. He emphasizes Steve’s excellence in film in order to point to the defendant’s alleged sensitivity and honesty. The lawyers give their closing speeches. The final verdict finds James King guilty of the murder of Mr. Nesbitt. Steve Harmon is acquitted.

Steve, elated by his acquittal, turns to hug O’Brien. However, his attorney coldly turns away. This reaction bothers Steve, and he ponders his lawyer’s impression of his own morality.

The novel jumps five months into the future. Steve’s life has, essentially, returned to normal. He continues journaling and filmmaking, which brings him happiness and purpose. However, his dad has moved away, thus creating distance within his family. Steve finds himself haunted by O’Brien’s callous reaction. Did O’Brien genuinely believe in Steve’s innocence? Or was she merely defending a “monster” because her job depended on it?

Monster Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Monster is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Wednesday, July 8th

The script allows Steve to speak and express himself when in court... it symbolizes his reality.

Please post your questions separately.

Edgar Allan Poe

This depends on what you want to comment on. Can you be more specific? Is it a specific work that he has done?

what page number is "You do the crime, you do the time. You act like garbage, they treat you like garbage" on

Page numbers differ depending on your book copy but you can find this quote in chapter 6.

Study Guide for Monster

Monster study guide contains a biography of Walter Dean Myers, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Monster
• Character List

Essays for Monster

Monster essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Monster by Walter Dean Myers.

• Race and Identity: 'The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian' and 'Monster'
• A Modernist Monster: Techniques and Social Messaging in Myers' Novel

Wikipedia Entries for Monster

• Introduction
• Themes and format
• Autobiographical elements

Home — Essay Samples — Entertainment — Monster — Monster: Descriptions

Monster: Descriptions

• Categories: Monster Mythology

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Published: Mar 20, 2024

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Monsters in literature, modern monsters.

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Interesting Essays For Class 1 Kids

Essays for Class 1 are one of the most attention-grabbing sections of the kid’s learning process. Essay writing is considered one of the most essential and creative parts of every competitive examination around the globe. It helps in assessing the thinking capacity, creativity and writing prowess of a student’s talent. For young learners, writing an essay for Class 1 is like an opportunity to express themselves in pen and paper and helps them discover their knowledge and writing skills on a given topic.

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English Essay Topics for Class 1

Here we bring you a list of English essay topics for Class 1 that young learners would enjoy writing, thereby enhancing their creativity and mental horizon:

Writing an essay for Class 1 introduces and encourages young kids to use their own imagination in weaving their thoughts into words by composing write-ups for various English essay topics for kids .

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Writing an essay about monsters is not a walk in the park. It is a deeply creative and difficult piece of academic work in terms of cultural, psychological, and societal analyses it stipulates. Students tasked with an essay devoted to monsters need to show a thorough cultural understanding of the topic of their essay, be it about a folkloric monster character or a fantasy one.

In this article, we will tell you what makes a monster essay so special, and guide you on how to write a decent essay on monster of your choice, apart from providing some original ideas on possible topics for this kind of essay.

How to write a monster essay

An essay about these creepy creatures – monsters, is not much different from any other college essay when it comes to structural composition and other formal requirements, including length. A typical high school or college paper about monsters as the main theme is 2–3 pages long, and it is usually an open-topic type of paper, i.e., you are responsible for choosing the topic. This freedom is both good and bad news since modern and classic literature and cinema offer us a whole army of monsters to choose from. Check out the very last chapter for some original ideas on topics of essays about monsters.

Meanwhile, you can try out [Company] for immediate and high-quality help with writing your essay assignment. This is a trustworthy academic support agency capable of writing a great essay devoted to the topic of monsters, as well as providing any other academic assistance, including editing, counselling, proofreading, grammar and format check & cleanup, etc.

If you are resolved on writing an essay by yourself, however, below please review several important steps you should consider taking:

• Define a promising topic. Unless you already have a brilliant topic idea in mind, this step may require you to conduct thorough research – recalling the latest fantasy movies you’ve watched about monsters, checking out your folk literature, going online, and generating a couple of relevant search engine results. The result should be an interesting topic, that you find inspiring and can talk about describing its cultural significance, and societal meaning.
• Make a thesis statement. Even an essay about such a popular topic as monsters must have a clear thesis statement. It can be your personal claim, an intriguing opinion you might have about your topic or an assertion that you can prove with reasoning and logic (it would be naïve to expect facts in connection with a fantasy topic).
• Develop a good outline. For your writing to run smoothly, you need to follow a clear plan or an outline. A monster outline essay is equally important as the text of your essay.
• Introduction (including some background information about the topic and a clear thesis statement);
• The main body, which consists of arguments in the form of logic or reasoning. The main body is also the place to “present” your monster, and talk about its place in the society (culture, whether global or local).
• Conclusion – reflect on the chosen topic and its cultural significance. Talk about how you managed to prove/disprove the central point you made in the introductory paragraph.
• Check and edit. Give some time to carefully read your essay, perhaps after a small break. Edit and proofread your text.

We cannot stress enough that your writing would be easier if you spent a little time researching the topic. Even though your favourite monster may be “famous” and you may have plenty of information about it, some background research and extra online reading would always bring additional details (often unexpected), highlight the historical context, and open up new aspects and dimensions.

Monster essay topics

Below, please find several ideas for topics of essays on monsters. You are welcome to change and modify them should you find promising topics for your essay that you’d like to adjust and improve.

• Vampires: discuss the historical origins and cultural connection of the vampire monsters. How they came into being, and what continues to make them an interesting topic for modern book and movie plots.
• Zombies: explore the fears that zombies represent in the global culture. If you are knowledgeable in the local cultural aspects of the zombie phenomenon – that would make up an excellent essay topic!
• Ghosts: what makes the fear of ghosts so ubiquitous? Pick up and explore a ghost story of your choice that is different from the mainstream ghost stories often presented in Hollywood movies.
• Bigfoot: the fictitious and non-fictitious aspects of the Bigfoot. Which cultures and nations are more susceptible to the sighting and stories about Bigfoot, and why?
• Loch Ness Monster: what does the Loch Ness Monster represent? Is it more of a legend or a scientific phenomenon? Talk about the origins of this legend/phenomenon.
• Sirens: what is the exact mythological symbolism of sirens, and why stories about them were so popular during the age of Great Discoveries on the Sea?

Monster essay examples

To aid your writing work, we have located a couple of great examples of essays about monsters online. Check them out below.

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Why I Teach “Monster” in High School

• By Amanda in Lesson Ideas , Special Education

Monster, by Walter Dean Myers, is a text frequently read in middle school about a 16-year-old boy on trial and facing a life sentence. Because it has a Lexile score of 670L, students at the middle school level can read the text. This actually makes it perfect for my special education students (and sometimes standard students) who are usually reading at around that level. It’s one of those books that is accessible for younger audiences but can also be more thoroughly analyzed by older students in high school. The subject of a teenager in jail and witnessing the horrors of what goes on in jail is certainly appropriate for high school students.

To give you a few ideas of how to approach teaching Monster, I’m listing out what I focus on with my high school students when reading this text.

This post may contain affiliate links and I may earn a small commission when you click on the links at no additional cost to you. As an Amazon Affiliate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Reliable vs. Unreliable Narrators

Monster is broken up into two different sections that alternate throughout the book. One section is from Steve’s personal point of view and is written out in his notebook. The text is even printed with a font to look like handwriting. The other section is written as a screenplay that Steve is writing in his notebook. This section uses a more formal font and is written in third person, but Steve, the narrator, is writing it.

This sets up for good discussions on whether or not Steve is reliable.

Examples of Steve’s Credibility

• is incredibly honest in his notebook writings about his fears in jail. His vulnerability and admitting to crying makes us feel he is telling the truth. This is how the book starts.
• somewhat admits through his movie scenes he was at least approached by King about the robbery.
• never clearly admits in court or in his writings if he was apart of the robbery.
• his lawyer tells him not to write anything in his notebook he wouldn’t want the prosecution to see (don’t admit you did anything in writing)
• is coached by his lawyer on how to answer questions. He is shown lying to his lawyer and being coached by his lawyer on how to answer questions.
• admits he doesn’t really understand himself if he is guilty or innocent.

I have a Prezi I use to introduce the idea of a reliable narrator. Click here if you want to check it out. It just goes through a quick explanation of reliable, unreliable, and somewhere-in-the-middle. I feel like Steve is somewhere in the middle. I give students quotes or have them find their own in order to demonstrate Steve’s varying level of credibility. Then I have them draw an arrow on the reliability gauge and write out a response to support their answer.

Themes about Identity

From the very beginning, the reader sees Steve struggle with his identity as he calls his movie Monster in reference to himself. Throughout there are instances where Steve can’t tell the difference between himself and the other inmates, the prosecutor is trying to make Steve look like all of the other criminals, and his parents no longer look at him the same way. Again, I either give students quotes or ask them to find their own in order to identify what the text is trying to say about identity.

This novel is great for struggling students because a lot of the quotes for his identity crisis come from the section of the text that looks like his handwriting. All my students who are overwhelmed skimming a text for quotes do much better with the natural chunking this book provides.

Accompanying Ted Talk

To go along with this, I have the students watch a Ted Talk given by someone who was incarcerated at a young age. It’s called “Why your worst deeds don’t define you.” Click here to check it out. The common theme is the title, so I have my students find the different examples of the theme in the text and the talk. Much of the talk is how the speaker turned his life around and found himself again. He gives suggestions for how we can change jails so people leave and are rehabilitated instead of hardened, angry, and more violent. Steve is still struggling to find himself again, so I use the talk to begin discussions on what Steve can do now and what the government can do to help others like Steve.

A few examples: create transition programs, train guards to have better interactions with the youth in jail, create programs for inmates like Steve to learn or work at a talent.

Inferences about O’Brien/Complex Character Developing Theme

Everything we hear about Steve’s lawyer, O’Brien, comes from Steve’s perspective. We don’t know what she is thinking, so the students have to make inferences on her feelings towards Steve based on her actions and dialogue. I focus on the relationship between her and Steve since it is complex and seems to change from day to day. For my students, I have a list of quotes involving O’Brien and they have to write out what they can infer about her feelings/attitude towards Steve. In the end, they need to summarize her feelings and explain the internal conflict she is feeling.

In a quick summary: O’Brien occasionally acts maternally or at the very least as a mentor towards Steve which shows she does view him as a child or young person. She also sees him as guilty based on her conversations with him. She likely doesn’t think he deserves a life sentence, but she’s conflicted about helping him to avoid any additional jail time.

The effect of her actions on Steve is significant. Steve is found not-guilty and O’Brien packs her things and walks out. She turns from his open arms and leaves. Steve spends months making movies about himself trying to figure out what O’Brien saw in him that she reacted that way. He is still haunted by the idea that O’Brien sees him as a monster and it causes him to question if it’s true. This is part of the development of the identity theme.

Classroom Discussion

The ambiguity of this text makes it a perfect fit for class discussion. Here are a few of the topics I like to have the students discuss. I hand out the paper at the beginning of the text so students can take notes on it throughout. When we have finished reading, everyone is ready to discuss with notes and textual evidence in hand.

-Is Steve guilty?

-What is an appropriate punishment if Steve is guilty?

-Is O’Brien’s behavior after the verdict given warranted?

-Is Steve’s environment to blame for his actions?

Reliable Witnesses

Okay, so this is just more of a fun activity than anything that is going to align with ELA common core standards. I like to show the opening of the movie Mystic River . I would include a link here, but I can’t find it anywhere. It’s rated R, but the only bad thing in this scene is one swear word. Here’s the link thanks to one of my readers (Leanne Mann) who got it to me in a comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDCRBmK2tpI 

The scene is of three boys in the 70s in Boston playing hockey in the street. They write their names out in wet cement when a car pulls up. A man steps out and scolds them. He makes the one boy he caught writing in the cement get into his car and they drive off. I stop it there and then put the students in small groups. I tell them they were in one of the neighboring houses watching what happened. The boy never came back and the police want to know what happened. I ask them to write down everything they can remember: what people were wearing, what they said, and what they did.

They struggle. They get into watching the movie and they forget key details. It links back to the novel in that one of the witnesses has trouble remembering the people in the store and what exactly was said.

Again, not totally in line with the standards. However, it breaks things up and is relevant to the text. It’s a game, and what student doesn’t like a game?

Movie Comparison

The Netflix movie is NOT the same as the book, but that’s not always a bad thing. The movie is a more modern version of the story. When it was initially published in 2001, security cameras weren’t everywhere and Steve could claim to not have been in the bodega (which is does when he is on trial). In the movie there is security video of him in the story right before the robbery. This, in my opinion, is one of the biggest differences between the movie and the novel. I don’t want to list out too many of the differences and impacts here because I hear some of the students have been using this blog for homework help (you sneaky buggers; I’m on to you!). 

For my own lessons I picked out nine scenes that I wanted to focus on that had the biggest impact on our understanding of Steve and his dilemma. I include page numbers (pages from a PDF I found) and time stamps so I can pull up and direct students to the essential information of the scene. Click here to find these worksheets in my TpT store. 

If you are planning on using the movie with the book, aside from what I said above, keep this in mind:

• The movie jumps around even more than the book. It is not sequential. If you’re showing portions of the movie as you go, make sure you know the timestamps for the scenes you want to cover.
• There is harsher language in the movie than what is in the book. The book depicts life in jail but through Steve’s eyes and he does not repeat what the other people say. In the movie we hear the f-bombs and everything else. 
• The ending is drastically different. Again, I don’t want to give it away here, but I will say that the title of the novel is nowhere near as relevant in the movie version. 

Not looking to get fired for showing a rated-R movie in class? I hear you 🙁 Check out the alternative I used below before there was an official movie. 

In the meantime, click here for a trailer put o ut by a theater company. It’s professionally done and true to the movie. I use it as an intro to voice-overs and different camera shots – both of which are used in Steve’s screenplay.

Want my Lesson Plans?

I have everything available on Teachers Pay Teachers which you can access by clicking here . My students really get into this story and appreciate that it is something a bit more modern and easier to understand than, say, Oedipus . Speaking of, that’s the topic of my next blog: Teaching Oedipus to struggling readers in high school. Save Save Save Save Save Save

• identity , monster , special education , teaching , ted talk , theme , unreliable narrator

This is my ninth year teaching. I'm certified in secondary English and special education. I love creating engaging lessons that help to reach all students regardless of ability. I don't post my real picture because I like to keep my privacy.

Skip to comment form

• Amy on July 6, 2023 at 1:00 pm

What movie did you pair with this book before Netflix made it officially? I can’t find where you named it.

• Amanda on September 26, 2023 at 5:38 pm Author

sorry for this horribly late response 🙁 Your comment was lost in a flood of spam. Here’s the link for the trailer. It was for a play done by a theater company.

• Leanne Mann on December 10, 2019 at 7:08 pm

• Carolyn on September 5, 2018 at 1:13 am

Any idea where to access the movie?

• Amanda on September 6, 2018 at 3:17 am Author

No, and I really have been looking and asking. It was in Sundance in January 2018, but no signs of release in theaters or to digital. Maybe they are shopping it around to Netflix, Amazon, etc. Sorry! I hope to update soon once I know anything more.

• Jen on April 17, 2019 at 5:45 pm

I’m looking all over for it too!

• Amanda on April 18, 2019 at 10:42 pm Author

Right!? It’s so frustrating that it’s made and not available anywhere. My students live this book and it would really help to have the movie to pair with it.

• Amanda on April 23, 2019 at 10:32 pm Author

It’s coming fall 2019!!!! Here’s the link to the info https://shadowandact.com/all-rise-monster-acquisition-enter

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Research essay: a ‘monster’ and its humanity.

Professor of English Susan J. Wolfson is the editor of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: A Longman Cultural Edition and co-editor, with Ronald Levao, of The Annotated Frankenstein.  

Published in January 1818, Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus has never been out of print or out of cultural reference. “Facebook’s Frankenstein Moment: A Creature That Defies Technology’s Safeguards” was the headline on a New York Times business story Sept. 22 — 200 years on. The trope needed no footnote, although Kevin Roose’s gloss — “the scientist Victor Frankenstein realizes that his cobbled-together creature has gone rogue” — could use some adjustment: The Creature “goes rogue” only after having been abandoned and then abused by almost everyone, first and foremost that undergraduate scientist. Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg and CEO Sheryl Sandberg, attending to profits, did not anticipate the rogue consequences: a Frankenberg making. 

The original Frankenstein told a terrific tale, tapping the idealism in the new sciences of its own age, while registering the throb of misgivings and terrors. The 1818 novel appeared anonymously by a down-market press (Princeton owns one of only 500 copies). It was a 19-year-old’s debut in print. The novelist proudly signed herself “Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley” when it was reissued in 1823, in sync with a stage concoction at London’s Royal Opera House in August. That debut ran for nearly 40 nights; it was staged by the Princeton University Players in May 2017. 

In a seminar that I taught on Frankenstein in various contexts at Princeton in the fall of 2016 — just weeks after the 200th anniversary of its conception in a nightmare visited on (then) Mary Godwin in June 1816 — we had much to consider. One subject was the rogue uses and consequences of genomic science of the 21st century. Another was the election season — in which “Frankenstein” was a touchstone in the media opinions and parodies. Students from sciences, computer technology, literature, arts, and humanities made our seminar seem like a mini-university. Learning from each other, we pondered complexities and perplexities: literary, social, scientific, aesthetic, and ethical. If you haven’t read Frankenstein (many, myself included, found the tale first on film), it’s worth your time. 

READ MORE  PAW Goes to the Movies: ‘Victor Frankenstein,’ with Professor Susan Wolfson

Scarcely a month goes by without some development earning the prefix Franken-, a near default for anxieties about or satires of new events. The dark brilliance of Frankenstein is both to expose “monstrosity” in the normal and, conversely, to humanize what might seem monstrously “other.” When Shelley conceived Frankenstein, Europe was scarred by a long war, concluding on Waterloo fields in May 1815. “Monster” was a ready label for any enemy. Young Frankenstein begins his university studies in 1789, the year of the French Revolution. In 1790, Edmund Burke’s international best-selling Reflections on the French Revolution recoiled at the new government as a “monster of a state,” with a “monster of a constitution” and “monstrous democratic assemblies.” Within a few months, another international best-seller, Tom Paine’s The Rights of Man, excoriated “the monster Aristocracy” and cheered the American Revolution for overthrowing a “monster” of tyranny.

Following suit, Mary Shelley’s father, William Godwin, called the ancien régime a “ferocious monster”; her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was on the same page: Any aristocracy was an “artificial monster,” the monarchy a “luxurious monster,” and Europe’s despots a “race of monsters in human shape.” Frankenstein makes no direct reference to the Revolution, but its first readers would have felt the force of its setting in the 1790s, a decade that also saw polemics for (and against) the rights of men, women, and slaves. 

England would abolish its slave trade in 1807, but Colonial slavery was legal until 1833. Abolitionists saw the capitalists, investors, and masters as the moral monsters of the global economy. Apologists regarded the Africans as subhuman, improvable perhaps by Christianity and a work ethic, but alarming if released, especially the men. “In dealing with the Negro,” ultra-conservative Foreign Secretary George Canning lectured Parliament in 1824, “we are dealing with a being possessing the form and strength of a man, but the intellect only of a child. To turn him loose in the manhood of his physical strength ... would be to raise up a creature resembling the splendid fiction of a recent romance.” He meant Frankenstein. 

Mary Shelley heard about this reference, and knew, moreover, that women (though with gilding) were a slave class, too, insofar as they were valued for bodies rather than minds, were denied participatory citizenship and most legal rights, and were systemically subjugated as “other” by the masculine world. This was the argument of her mother’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), which she was rereading when she was writing Frankenstein. Unorthodox Wollstonecraft — an advocate of female intellectual education, a critic of the institution of marriage, and the mother of two daughters conceived outside of wedlock — was herself branded an “unnatural” woman, a monstrosity. 

Shelley had her own personal ordeal, which surely imprints her novel. Her parents were so ready for a son in 1797 that they had already chosen the name “William.” Even worse: When her mother died from childbirth, an awful effect was to make little Mary seem a catastrophe to her grieving father. No wonder she would write a novel about a “being” rejected from its first breath. The iconic “other” in Frankenstein is of course this horrifying Creature (he’s never a “human being”). But the deepest force of the novel is not this unique situation but its reverberation of routine judgments of beings that seem “other” to any possibility of social sympathy. In the 1823 play, the “others” (though played for comedy) are the tinker-gypsies, clad in goatskins and body paint (one is even named “Tanskin” — a racialized differential).

Victor Frankenstein greets his awakening creature as a “catastrophe,” a “wretch,” and soon a “monster.” The Creature has no name, just these epithets of contempt. The only person to address him with sympathy is blind, spared the shock of the “countenance.” Readers are blind this way, too, finding the Creature only on the page and speaking a common language. This continuity, rather than antithesis, to the human is reflected in the first illustrations: 

In the cover for the 1823 play, above, the Creature looks quite human, dishy even — alarming only in size and that gaze of expectation. The 1831 Creature, shown on page 29, is not a patent “monster”: It’s full-grown, remarkably ripped, human-looking, understandably dazed. The real “monster,” we could think, is the reckless student fleeing the results of an unsupervised undergraduate experiment gone rogue. 

In Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein pleads sympathy for the “human nature” in his revulsion. “I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health ... but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room.” Repelled by this betrayal of “beauty,” Frankenstein never feels responsible, let alone parental. Shelley’s genius is to understand this ethical monstrosity as a nightmare extreme of common anxiety for expectant parents: What if I can’t love a child whose physical formation is appalling (deformed, deficient, or even, as at her own birth, just female)? 

The Creature’s advent in the novel is not in this famous scene of awakening, however. It comes in the narrative that frames Frankenstein’s story: a polar expedition that has become icebound. Far on the ice plain, the ship’s crew beholds “the shape of a man, but apparently of gigantic stature,” driving a dogsled. Three paragraphs on, another man-shape arrives off the side of the ship on a fragment of ice, alone but for one sled dog. “His limbs were nearly frozen, and his body dreadfully emaciated by fatigue and suffering,” the captain records; “I never saw a man in so wretched a condition.” This dreadful man focuses the first scene of “animation” in Frankenstein: “We restored him to animation by rubbing him with brandy, and forcing him to swallow a small quantity. As soon as he shewed signs of life, we wrapped him up in blankets, and placed him near the chimney of the kitchen-stove. By slow degrees he recovered ... .” 

The re-animation (well before his name is given in the novel) turns out to be Victor Frankenstein. A crazed wretch of a “creature” (so he’s described) could have seemed a fearful “other,” but is cared for as a fellow human being. His subsequent tale of his despicably “monstrous” Creature is scored with this tremendous irony. The most disturbing aspect of this Creature is his “humanity”: this pathos of his hope for family and social acceptance, his intuitive benevolence, bitterness about abuse, and skill with language (which a Princeton valedictorian might envy) that solicits fellow-human attention — all denied by misfortune of physical formation. The deepest power of Frankenstein, still in force 200 years on, is not its so-called monster, but its exposure of “monster” as a contingency of human sympathy.  

by Walter Dean Myers

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Meta’s A.I. Assistant Is Fun to Use, but It Can’t Be Trusted

Despite Mark Zuckerberg’s hope for the chatbot to be the smartest, it struggles with facts, numbers and web search.

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By Brian X. Chen

Brian X. Chen is The Times’s lead consumer technology writer and the author of Tech Fix , a column about the social implications of the tech we use.

In the last few days, you may have noticed something new inside Meta’s apps, including Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp: an artificially intelligent chatbot .

Within those apps, you can chat with Meta AI and type in questions and requests like “What’s the weather this week in New York?” or “Write a poem about two dogs living in San Francisco.” The assistant will come up with responses immediately, such as “The corgi was short, with a butt so wide, the lab was tall, with a tongue that would glide.” You can also instruct Meta AI to produce pictures — like an illustration of a family watching fireworks.

This is Meta’s response to OpenAI’s ChatGPT , the chatbot that upended the tech industry in 2022, and similar bots including Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s Bing AI. The Meta bot’s image generator also competes with A.I. imaging tools like Adobe’s Firefly, Midjourney and DALL-E .

Unlike other chatbots and image generators, Meta’s A.I. assistant is a free tool baked into apps that billions of people use every day, making it the most aggressive push yet from a big tech company to bring this flavor of artificial intelligence — known as generative A.I. — to the mainstream.

“We believe Meta AI is now the most intelligent AI assistant that you can freely use,” Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive, wrote on Instagram on Thursday.

The new bot invites you to “ask Meta AI anything” — but my advice, after testing it for six days, is to approach it with caution. It makes lots of mistakes when you treat it as a search engine. For now, you can have some fun: Its image generator can be a clever way to express yourself when chatting with friends.

A Meta spokeswoman said that because the technology was new, it might not always return accurate responses, similar to other A.I. systems. There is currently no way to turn off Meta AI inside the apps.

Here’s what doesn’t work well — and what does — in Meta’s AI.

It’s not a search engine

Meta announced its chatbot as a replacement for web search. By typing queries for Meta AI into the search bar at the top of Messenger or Instagram, a group of friends planning a trip could look up flights while chatting, the company said.

I’ll be blunt: Don’t do this. Meta AI fails spectacularly at basic search queries like looking up recipes, airfares and weekend activities.

In response to my request to look up flights from New York to Colorado, the chatbot listed instructions on how to take public transportation from the Denver airport to downtown. And when I asked for flights from Oakland, Calif., to Puerto Vallarta in Mexico, the bot listed flights departing from Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

When I asked Meta AI to look up a recipe for baking Japanese milk bread, the bot produced a generic bread recipe that skipped the most important step: tangzhong, the technique that involves cooking flour and milk into a paste.

The A.I. also made up other basic information. When I asked it for suggestions for a romantic weekend in Oakland, its list included a fictional business. And when I asked it to tell me about myself — Brian Chen the journalist — it said I worked at The New York Times but incorrectly mentioned a tech blog I’ve never written for, The Verge.

Bing AI and Gemini, which are hooked directly into the Microsoft and Google search engines, did better at these types of search tasks, but clicking on a link through an old-fashioned web search is still more efficient.

Don’t ask it to count

A.I. chatbots work by looking for patterns in how words are used together, similar to the predictive text systems on our phones that suggest words to complete a sentence. All of them have struggled with numbers.

Unsurprisingly, Meta’s assistant stinks at counting. When you ask it for a five-syllable word starting with the letter w, it will respond with “wonderfully,” which has four syllables. When you ask it for a four-syllable word starting with w, it will offer “wonderful,” which has three syllables. Gemini and ChatGPT also fail at these tests.

Focus on words

Like other chatbots, Meta’s performed better the more information you gave it.

It excelled at editing existing paragraphs. For example, when I fed Meta AI paragraphs that felt verbose and asked for the paragraph to be tightened, the chatbot trimmed all the unnecessary words. When I asked it to improve a sentence written in passive voice, the bot rewrote it in active voice and added more context. When I asked it to remove jargon from a paragraph written by a tech blog, it rewrote highly technical terms in plain language.

It’s a fine study guide

Because Meta AI is better when it works with existing text, it can be helpful for studying. For instance, if you’re taking a history class and studying World War II, you can paste a website with information about the war into the search bar and then ask the bot to quiz you. The chatbot will read the information on the website and generate a multiple-choice test.

You can use it for fun emojis

The most compelling aspect of Meta AI is its ability to generate images by typing “/imagine” followed by a description of the desired image. For instance, “/imagine a photograph of a cat sleeping on a window sill” will produce a convincing image in a few seconds:

Meta’s A.I. is much faster than other image generators like Midjourney, which can take more than a minute. The results can be very weird — images of people occasionally lacked limbs or looked cross-eyed.

Ethics experts have raised concerns about the implications of generating fake images because they can contribute to the spread of misinformation online. But in the context of using A.I. while chatting with friends and family in WhatsApp and Messenger, Meta AI is a positive example of how generating fake images can be fun — and safe — if we treat it as a new form of emoji.

In a group conversation with my in-laws, I mentioned I was shopping for a robust baby stroller that could withstand the crooked roads of my neighborhood. In seconds, my wife used Meta AI to generate an image of a stroller with enormous wheels that made it resemble a monster truck, stamped with a helpful label that said, “Imagined with AI.”

Brian X. Chen is the lead consumer technology writer for The Times. He reviews products and writes Tech Fix , a column about the social implications of the tech we use. More about Brian X. Chen

Explore Our Coverage of Artificial Intelligence

News  and Analysis

Meta projected that revenue for the current quarter  would be lower than what Wall Street anticipated and said it would spend billions of dollars more on its artificial intelligence efforts, even as it reported robust revenue and profits for the first three months of the year.

Microsoft introduced three smaller A.I. models  that are part of a technology family the company has named Phi-3. The company said even the smallest of the three performed almost as well as GPT-3.5, the system that underpinned OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot.

A new flood of child sexual abuse material created by A.I. is threatening to overwhelm the authorities  already held back by antiquated technology and laws. As a result, legislators are working on bills  to combat A.I.-generated sexually explicit images of minors.

The Age of A.I.

A new category of apps promises to relieve parents of drudgery, with an assist from A.I . But a family’s grunt work is more human, and valuable, than it seems.

Despite Mark Zuckerberg’s hope for Meta’s A.I. assistant to be the smartest , it struggles with facts, numbers and web search.

Much as ChatGPT generates poetry, a new A.I. system devises blueprints for microscopic mechanisms  that can edit your DNA.

Could A.I. change India’s elections? Avatars are addressing voters by name, in whichever of India’s many languages they speak. Experts see potential for misuse  in a country already rife with disinformation.

Which A.I. system writes the best computer code or generates the most realistic image? Right now, there’s no easy way to answer those questions, our technology columnist writes .