This is the third time this phrasing has been heard in the volume. The first is at
its very beginning where Victor confesses that he "ardently wished to extinguish that
life which [he] had so thoughtlessly bestowed" (II:1:6). The second occurence takes
place during the encounter on the Mer de Glace, where under the intensity of the experience
Victor adds to his weight of guilt, vowing to "extinguish the spark that I so negligently
bestowed" (II:2:8). The Creature thus taunts Victor with his own words and desires,
but stresses the character of the negligence involved: his life, he asserts, has been
"wantonly bestowed," which returns him to his earlier line of attack: "How dare you
sport thus with life?" (II:2:7).

Although it might seem eccentric to some readers, a crucial aspect of the Creature's
bonding with the De Lacey family comes from the shared benevolence they practice to
the natural world. Their mutual vegetarian nourishment is stressed in these adjacent
paragraphs.

The Creature has been repeating this adjective (and the noun "benevolence") in seeming
insistence on the unquestionable virtues of the cottagers. Now, the intrusion of the
ensuing phrase ("I persuaded myself") and a next sentence in the form of a question
artfully raises the doubts his narrative has suspended. The entire paragraph, indeed,
evokes a litany of the high ideals of Enlightenment virtue gleaned by the Creature
from his reading and quietly interrogates their efficacy for "a wretched outcast."

In this paragraph the Creature skillfully assembles the conclusions to be abstracted
from his treatment by the cottagers, touching on each of the themes so woven through
the fabric of his discourse.

It is a remarkable achievement of Mary Shelley's that by this point in the Creature's
narrative, this word (and its derivatives) have become fully ironized. Continually
repeated as it is (see, for instance, II:7:2 and II:7:9), this Enlightenment concept
stands in a kind of verbal isolation, unsupported by any examples that might convince
us of its dynamic, positive value, or even (outside the Creature's own actions) that
active benevolence exists. Thus the Creature's ironic conclusion seems altogether
appropriate.

It is fair to say that Victor's intentions almost always outstrip his ability to realize
them.

Victor unconsciously repeats the neutral language with which the Creature concludes
his narrative ("This being you must create"). Within a few paragraphs, however, he
will return to his usual store of epithets.

The language here has embarrassed some readers, but perhaps it is intended to be an
embarrassment, all hot air and vaunting, ineffectual before the power that animates
the eight-foot Creature.

As the month is December, the sun in this fairly northern latitude would rise relatively
late, at some time around 8 a.m.

We have no comparable description of Elizabeth Lavenza from Victor, whose appreciation
of her virtues overshadows the few physical details he gives of her upon his return
to his family at the end of of the first volume (I:6:40). In the unself-conscious
innocence of the Creature, in contrast, not only do we realize that he has a nuanced
appreciation for the beautiful, but we also comprehend that strong romantic desire—not
a subject in which Victor seems particularly adept—is an aspect of his makeup, perhaps
to be considered normal for a human being, but in the Creature's circumstances deeply
problematical. Mary Shelley's delicate handling of the Creature's awakening to desire
is an index of the complexity with which she endows his character.