On Oct. 27, English teacher Mrs. Joanna Dallam’s AP English literature and composition class held a mock trial in the lecture hall for the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. In the trial, the B2 class was ultimately deciding the main character, Victor Frankinstein’s, fate, and whether he was guilty or innocent involving the charges of murder that his creature committed against his family.
As decided by the jury – consisting of freshmen Madilyn Coyle, Lucy Carbonell, Sara Summerfield, and Adrianna Ebberts – Victor Frankinstien was charged as guilty.
Senior Haley Borns played Elizabeth, Victor’s wife and Caroline, Victor’s mother. Borns stated, “In preparation I took quotes out of the novel and looked at a deeper view on the relationships and dialogue between the two. “
Borns continued, “With portraying Elizabeth, I wanted to go more in depth on how Victor kind of led her to her death, so I tried to embody that super sad person. But for the mother, I think I did some good acting with that.”
Senior Kris Gray played the author, Mary Shelley, even though she was not even in the book. Gray stated, “To prepare for this role, I did a lot of research on Mary Shelley about her past trauma, and her reasons for writing Frankenstein, which really allowed me to get some background on how to portray her.”
Gray continued, “What I talked about in the trial was that she started writing the novel based on the idea of bringing something back to life from the dead and galvanism [the idea that scientists could use electricity to stimulate or restart life]. My claim was that Mary Shelley wanted to warn against playing God and just encourage people to stay content with their situation.”
Senior Blake Carberry was the defense attorney for Victor Frankenstein. Carberry stated, “For the trial, I prepared opening and closing arguments with evidence from the book, as well as prepared questions to ask each witness. I would say the creature [being] on the stand was a really hard point for me. That’s the moment I thought I was going to lose.”
Senior Cole Hellwig was the prosecutor, who was trying to put Victor Frankenstein in jail. Hellwig stated, “The outcome was that I won, which was pretty fantastic. It was a close one, but I thought I had a high chance of me losing because [Carberry] is really good. I know he is really good with textual evidence and asking questions, so the outcome did kind of shock me a little bit.”
Others in the trial included senior Isabelle Hendricks, who played Professor Krempe; senior Grant Peterson, who played Victor Frankenstein; senior Kent Holcombe, who played the creature; senior Aubrey Heise, who played Robert Walton; senior Allison Mitchell, who played Justine, a housemaid that lived with the Frankenstein’s; and senior Madalyn Caiazzo, who played Henry Clerval, Victor’s best friend.
