Although this language may sound proverbial, we are actually witness here to the actual
occurrence of a cultural transformation into proverbial status. The reference is,
once again, specifically to Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," where the dead
albatross is hung around the Mariner's neck in the last stanza of Part 2, not to be
removed until the end of Part 4. Although the overtone of Victor's comment is light,
it does return us to the isolation of the far northern seas where this story is being
told and where earlier Coleridge's poem was invoked for analogy by Walton (I:L2:6).
It may also remind us of the morning after the Creature's endowment with life (I:4:7)
when Victor's sense of being haunted first descends on him.