The repetition of this phrase (I:1:13 and note) calls attention to what would appear
an ideal family: close-knit, affectionate, mutually acculturating. Does it do so to
establish such an ideal as a retreat from the sublime terrors of the novel? or to
suggest that even such a model family could not be protected from ruination? or, with
an underlying sense of irony, to stress that for all his nostalgia Victor never inculcated
the values he honors as projected by the family? Similar questions surround the other
"ideal" domestic scene of the novel, the De Laceys' cottage (II:3:15).