a "guiding spirit" (III:7:26 and note) as he embarked on the Arctic ice fields. Yet
what he appears to be telling his sister and her readers here is that Victor's only
solace is in madness, and that for so deeply alienated a creature madness is preferable
to sanity. If by this statement he is recognizing that Victor is actually mad, it
raises considerable questions about what constitutes the truth contained by either
narrative—Victor's, certainly, but also his own which relies exclusively on Victor's
for its authority.