There are occasions in this novel where the subtlety of the verbal patterning may
leave readers shaking their heads. The Creature, alluding to the journal in which
Victor describes the process of his creation, appears deliberately to echo the ugly
language with which Victor had earlier, in marked aversion, recounted that experience
to Walton. We are thus to suppose that Victor has been reusing phrases from that journal
in his narrative. For his "workshop of filthy creation," see I:3:9 and note. For his
further reference to the Creature as "the wretch, the filthy dæmon, to whom I had
given life," see I:6:22. At the end of this interview Victor will revert to the adjective
to characterize him once again (II:9:12), and the word then appears in the penultimate
sentence of the 1818 volume translated into nightmarish proportions (II:9:23).