• avoided . . . any encounter Victor's regaining a sense of community through the influence of Clerval's letter,
    as he represented himself three paragraphs earlier, seems far from certain. His shying
    from contact with his fellow humans has become virtually instinctive. That he refers
    to the fishermen by the generic term "creatures" is instructive, since it separates
    them to a marked degree within the same generic category as the being whom he created.