NOTES

wantonness of power

The Creature knows about the effects of unchecked power through the account of Safie's father's persecution (II:6:3) and the De Laceys' ruination (II:6:14), and he may have gleaned something of its underlying assumptions from William Frankenstein's instinctive reliance on his father's ability to punish arbitrarily (see II:8:27 and note). Yet, it is to Victor that the Creature speaks, and, since he has used a derivative of "wantonness" in his earlier condemnation (II:8:1 and note), it is perhaps to that particularized sense of irresponsibility that he reverts here.