1232

  • so miserable a wretch This speech is closely linked in tone and diction with the point in Victor's narration
    when, awaiting his trial in Ireland, he resolved on the destruction of his Creature
    as the sole purpose of his future existence (III:4:43). Once again, we discern language
    (e.g. "miserable," "wretch"), which was originally applied to the Creature (I:4:2,
    I:4:3), then thrown back upon Victor by the Creature's taunts (III:7:7), operating
    as a standard diction for his own self-reference.

    • 1231

  • Miserable himself, that he may render no other wretched This phrasing succinctly captures the closed circle in which the Creature and his
    creator exist, miserable and incapable of producing anything else but misery. Its
    terms are as applicable to the speaker as to the object of his hatred, as may be indicated
    by the simple fact that Victor Frankenstein dies first.

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  • wandering ministers of vengeance Upon a moment's reflection the reader will recognize that Victor, by this term, means
    the primitive Furies of classical myth. Their most prominent realization in Greek
    literature is in Aeschylus's Oresteia, where, as enacted in the third part of the
    trilogy, The Eumenides, the Furies are persuaded by Athena to give over their ritual
    vengeance to a new and more civilized system of justice that will henceforth regulate
    human behavior. For Victor thus to invoke the Furies suggests his reversion to a primitive
    bloodlust incompatible with modern civilization. Although not yet written, P. B. Shelley's
    representation of the Furies in Prometheus Unbound (see I.444), as psychological agents
    of self-victimization who lacerate the psyche, is wholly in accord with Mary Shelley's
    conception here.

    • 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.

    • 1227

  • 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.

    • 1224

  • 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."

    • 1223

  • 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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