NOTES

unparalleled eloquence

Later Walton calls Frankenstein's eloquence "forcible and touching" (III:WC:6) and just three weeks after the present letter the crew will witness its effect (III:WC:17). But on that occasion the crew will not be swayed by Victor; and even Victor himself, somewhat earlier, evinced himself as distrustful of mere eloquence, warning Walton against the power of the Creature's speech and suggesting that it might mislead him (III:7:26).

Eloquence as a concept implicitly assumes multiple perspectives and an underlying uncertainty as to where truth resides. It is thus focussed as a highly vexed issue in the novel, which reveals itself to be at once selfconscious in its employment of manipulative rhetoric and suspicious of the effects.