250 Word Paragraph

Victoria Cerrone

Advanced English 12

Mr. Keane

Document 4

457 word count

Monster Makeover

 My group and I had the responsibilities of analyzing certain characters in the three books Frankenstein, Heart of Darkness, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley, the nameless monster is described as “His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion and straight black lips.” (Shelley, pg. 47) Although glancing at the mind image of creating a monster is overwhelming, it was very easy to complete in reality. For the Frankenstein makeover, I gathered images from the description to be morbid, graphic, and detailed. During the makeover, I darkened the model’s eyes with blue and black makeup to make it appear as bruised eyes, and then tied beading wire into knots to make a stitch like impression. I spread a wax like substance in the areas where the wire would be and then I trailed the wire around the left eye and down the right cheek. I then mixed red and black paint to get the color of blood as I painted that onto the wire. In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, written by Louis Stevenson, the transition of characters is described as “Evil…had left on that body an imprint of deformity and decay.” (Stevenson, pg. 62). I imaged a character with two sides; good and evil. I darkened the model’s skin tone with a bronzer and then circled over the skin with black makeup to create an appearance of grimy skin. I also spread the dark makeup around the eyes to make them look sunken in, and then I sprayed hair color over the left half of the hair and the left half of the beard. In Heart of Darkness, written by Joseph Conrad, the natives are components of Kurtz’s violent behavior and this is described as “The heads, the heads; sometimes he goes too far.” (Brando/Sheen video 1979). To create the image of a decapitated native, I mixed red and black paint to create a blood like color and smeared it down both sides of the manikin’s cheeks. After that, I painted both eyes black to make it look like she had lost her eyes, and then I smeared the wax like substance across the neck and painted the “blood” over it. Then I mixed pieces of cotton with water and the paint and applied it to the wax substance.