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of the novel. His "Pains of Sleep," in which he recounts the psychic repercussions
of a nightmare induced by opium, was published in 1816, shortly before Mary Shelley
began writing Frankenstein.
of the novel. His "Pains of Sleep," in which he recounts the psychic repercussions
of a nightmare induced by opium, was published in 1816, shortly before Mary Shelley
began writing Frankenstein.
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In the 1818 edition Elizabeth is the daughter of Alphonse's deceased sister (see I:1:7).
Although in the 1831 edition her parentage is distanced, she retains this same designation
of being "more than daughter." The terms recall the rhetoric in which she herself,
in her dungeon, addressed Justine (see I:7:23). Even more so, they echo Victor's own
description of her in their youth, in the revised 1831 edition (see 1831:I:1:10),
and thus strongly suggest that there Mary Shelley was attempting to draw together
these linguistic echoes to emphasize the inbred, almost incestuous, closeness of the
family. As elsewhere, the echoes may intimate that the bourgeois domestic affections
are not an unmixed blessing.
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almost wholly by its gradual character, the reader can attribute this statement either
to Mary Shelley's desire for a gothic ambience or, more consistent with her art, to
Victor's overheated imagination. Since the previous paragraphs have, through the foreshortening
of time, already hinted at his surrender to mania, this could be intended as a further
example of the slippage of his sense of reality.
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the statements of its narrators continues here as Walton twice—and in the formulation
of a logical proof ("conviction of the truth" . . . "Such a monster has then really
existence")—thoughtlessly borrows Victor's diction to describe the Creature. Careful
readers will remember that the "apparition . . . seen from our ship" was described
very differently at the time (I:L4:3).
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applicable to a true understanding of the dynamics that underlie the identification
of him as monstrous. No longer merely a "monster" in and of himself, here the Creature
is designated as being created in such a form. Victor thus tacitly acknowledges his
responsibility for making his Creature monstrous, whether in deed or by the mere utterance
of the word.
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The Creature is thoroughly demonized in his mind.
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phrase. In the second case, although the revised edition lacks the epigraph from Milton's
Paradise Lost that marks the original title page ("Did I request thee, Maker, from
my clay / To mould me Man?"—X.743-44 ), Mary Shelley's recast diction seems to recall
it with a deliberate irony. In this reconstitution the new Adam, lacking all free
will, is animated by his own revenge, which is the pattern, the "mould," established
by Satan in Milton's epic.
On a mundane rather than cosmic level, however, we might want to contemplate what
it is to have one's entire emotional life formed by the sentiment of revenge? In accord
with the loss of "voluntary thought" mentioned in the previous sentence, Victor also
gives up any feeling, any instinctual sense of identification, that might lead him
away from his obsessive rage against his double. He thus confesses himself as being
wholly shaped, both intellectually and emotionally, by this bond of negation. As he
embarks on a pursuit of high adventure, he casts himself, ironically, as a totally
passive victim of his own choosing.
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shared by Victor Frankenstein and the Creature. Unconscious of his repetitive language,
Victor has named the Creature a "wretch" on first looking at him (see II:4:2) and,
again upon seeing him a second time, as the being approaches him across the Sea of
Ice (II:2:5). But he likewise refers to himself by the same term in the last sentence
of Volume 1 (I:7:33), and Elizabeth characterizes him similarly at the beginning of
the second volume (II:1:8).
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novel than the way in which this term shifts its application as the narrations unfold.
The two words are first juxtaposed by Victor as he contemplates his newly vivified
Creature (I:4:3). This exact phrase is then employed by the Creature (though, of course,
we must recall that in terms of strict chronology, his usage predates that of Victor's
narrative), as he tells of his sensations upon awakening on the first night of his
existence (II:3:2). Now it is he who applies it to Victor. In its final use Victor,
having internalized its truth, will invoke the term, in conversation with Walton,
to describe the total failure of his existence (III:Walton:9).
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with the implication of how unfortunate it will be should Victor once more be "let
loose" upon the world. Here, the term by which Victor first denominated his Creature—wretch
(see I:4:2 and note)—which is descended from the Old English word for exile, is expanded
to encompass the entire world.