1229

  • It is midnight In folk traditions midnight is a time for supernatural events (the transformation
    of Cinderella's coach into a pumpkin) or strange apparitions (witches, elves). It
    was at midnight that Victor Frankenstein first encountered his Creature in the wild,
    on his return to Geneva after the murder of William (I:6:25).

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  • satisfied that abhorrence and opprobrium should load my memory Curiously, in this respect the Creature is the opposite of Victor Frankenstein, whom
    he otherwise mirrors in so many aspects. Victor was so preoccupied with inscribing
    his experiences in such a way as to exonerate himself that he corrected Walton's transcript
    of his narration (III:Walton:4). Oddly enough, the only tangible memory that the Creature
    existed is embodied in Walton's manuscript, of which he is ignorant.

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  • an absorbing melancholy, that resembled madness

    The final third of the novel is going to concentrate much attention on the progressive
    deterioration of Victor's mental health. Thus, in revising the novel, Mary Shelley
    carefully implants at this crucial turn of events, when Victor once again plans to
    depart the family circle, Alphonse Frankenstein's suspicion that his son may be deranged.

    • 1226

  • the mechanical impulse A reader can empathize with the sense of relief with which Victor sheds his anxious,
    nervous state of mind in favor of a dogged determination. But the particular language
    Mary Shelley uses here indicates that it is also a dogged determinism. In ridding
    himself of anxiety and a sense of personal responsibility, Victor would seem to give
    up his last shreds of humanity, transforming himself into a mere machinery of destruction,
    an armament of war.

    • 1225

  • Mayence A French spelling for Mainz. Mary Shelley uses this same form in A History of a Six
    Weeks' Tour. Her description of the Rhine landscape at the same time of the year closely
    parallels Frankenstein's account on this occasion.

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  • 8th of May

    The timetable seems seriously awry at this point. Henry Clerval was murdered in late
    August. Victor's subsequent breakdown forced a two-month delay during which his father
    was summoned, and the trial seems to have transpired about a month after Alphonse
    Frankenstein's arrival. This would put it in the December following the summer's removal
    to the Orkney Islands. Victor's release from prison ensued in a fortnight (III:4:44),
    and he records that thereafter he and his father left Ireland as speedily as they
    could (III:4:48). Thus, the arrival in Paris should come some four months earlier
    than Elizabeth's letter makes it. This error is attenuated in the first edition, we
    may remember, by a similar lapse of time in the trip to England, where, though it
    appears that Victor and Henry begin their trip down the Rhine in early September,
    they are not reported as having crossed the channel until the "latter days of September
    " (III:1:24).

    Scrutiny of the surviving manuscripts suggests that Mary Shelley had her chronology
    straight the first time around and for some reason changed her mind and then, again,
    subsequently compounded the confusion. In the draft she originally had Victor and
    his father arrive in Le Havre on the "8th of Feb." and dated Elizabeth's letter from
    Geneva "February 18th;" then in each case she crossed out the month, substituting
    "May." In the fair copy intended for the printer, Elizabeth's letter was first dated
    "April," but this designation was cancelled and replaced with "May 18th."

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  • Of what materials was I made The word "materials" is the euphemism Victor customarily uses for the human and animal
    parts out of which he constructs the beings to which he intends to impart life. Now
    reduced to a psychological wretchedness, his physical being seems to him equivalent
    to these shards of undifferentiated flesh. Mary Shelley subtly reaffirms Victor's
    growing identification with his miserable Creature.

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  • I am your master Portending a reversal of the father-son roles both Victor and the Creature have implicitly
    relied on, this assertion of the Creature's power contrasts markedly with Victor's
    chronic indecision and impotence. From this point on, as this language intimates,
    both are locked in the embrace of their mutual anatagonism.

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  • the martyrs of old Once again Victor's sense of his own heroism intrudes on the discourse to transform
    what could be construed as unfeeling, sordid, or insane into a grand and self-exculpating
    gesture. Martyrs, we may remind ourselves, however their acts may be justified, are
    by their nature suicidal.

    • 1220

  • the mark of the fingers Victor recalls the account of William's death contained in his father's letter of
    May 12th in the previous year (I:6:6).
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