begins to close with his Creature. That Mary Shelley expects her readers to sense
some measure of perverse, almost abstracted eroticism in this "burning gush" might
be inferred from her continual employment of the language of desire throughout the
novel (for instance, the various forms of "ardour" and "ardent" she marshals with
such skill) and the curious vacuum where one might anticipate passion in the relation
of Victor and Elizabeth.