• 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.