The sense of divergent perspectives between Victor and Alphonse Frankenstein encountered
in the first chapter (I:1:15-I:1:16) here is extended to a neighboring father's shortsighted
thwarting of all his son's ambitions. Given Victor's portrayal of Clerval as a poet,
it is impossible not to feel the impress of Percy Bysshe Shelley's strained relations
with his father in this account.