to recount a trial in which it is essential that he exonerate himself. On a more interior
level of the discourse we as readers are privy to a second narrative, which is meant
by Victor to exonerate the course of his life to Walton and, through Walton, to posterity.
This comment, then, links up with other instances, both early and late in the novel,
in which Victor's concern with rhetorical propriety shadows a desire to write history
so as to reflect well on him (see I:L4:30, I:3:13, and III:WC:2 and III:WC:4).