NOTES

destiny

If we revert to the actual chronology of Frankenstein, we realize that it was only the day before that Victor had told Walton that his "fate [was] nearly fulfilled" (I:L4:32 and note), but left the reasons for that assurance totally unarticulated. In the present narration he will slowly begin to explore the range of determinants of his "destiny," starting a few paragraphs earlier by acknowledging that it ought to have been tied to his patriarchal inheritance as a set of understood family obligations (I:1:1), a duty that is here to be set in opposition to a self-absorbed obsession with scientific discovery, which is the evil "genius" he will now delineate.