over the conflicting claims of domestic retreat and aspiring self-assertion, which
are in turn poles that themselves comprise a dialectical field over which Romanticism
continually expresses much ambivalence. The particular terms of Victor's last utterance
have a somewhat chilling effect: at what, a reader may well wonder, does Victor contemplate
another's success? If in the realm in which he has failed, assuming the role of God,
we may envision from Victor's experience a greater, even a catastrophic, failure.
Even as he moves linguistically to open up possibility, the lingering effects of his
example resist his optimism.