999

  • ardent desire The resonaces of this phrase for both Victor (see I:2:7), his Creature (see II:5:7
    and III:Walton:43), Walton (I:L3:1), and even the beneficent Mr. Kirwin (III:4:20)
    are another indication of how carefully Mary Shelley, in this final chapter of Victor's
    narration, is engaged in marking thematic unities across the various levels of her
    fictional panorama. "Ardent desire," though if untempered it can lead to a solipsistic
    irresponsibilty, is nonetheless an essential human principle. Its abrogation here,
    which will be reinforced by Victor's repetition of this disclaimer in his last moments
    (see III:Walton:28), indicates how whole is Victor's reversal from the student who
    undertook his career at Ingolstadt because he so "ardently desired the acquisition
    of knowledge" (I:2:7).

    • 998

  • They were for ever ardent and craving In the connotations of Mary Shelley's time, this phrase, in combination with the
    "impotent passions" described two sentences earlier, would seem to suggest that the
    Creature has suffered deeply during his existence from unconsummated sexual desire.
    Ironically, his desire for intercourse has been pure and unsublimated, whereas that
    of Walton and Frankenstein has been strongly channeled away from human interaction
    and into their respective projects (see II:9:9 and note).

    • 997

  • like the archangel

    The network of subtle allusiveness that has quietly identified Victor Frankenstein
    with Milton's Satan in Paradise Lost here rises to the surface of the text. Victor
    refers specifically to the climax of Satan's soliloquy on Mount Niphates:

    Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell;
    And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep
    Still threatening to devour me opens wide,
    To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heaven.
    (IV.75-79)

    • 996

  • the apple had already been eaten Victor here construes himself in terms of the fallen Adam, by his transgressive actions
    forever barred from Paradise. The angel whose "arm [is] bared" is the figure Blake
    called "the Covering Cherub," assigned to make certain that no return was possible:
    it is to be assumed that by this figure Victor identifies his Creature as an instrument
    of divine destiny.

    See also Milton's description of this banishment in Paradise Lost, XII.632-44.

    • 995

  • appearance of the simplest truth The emphasis on Victor's theatricality in the previous paragraph has insinuated the
    question of exactly where the truth may lie in Victor's account. Although Walton concentrates
    on the possibility that Victor's tale could be a complete fabrication, for the reader
    convinced of the Creature's existence this language also underscores the larger issue
    of the relativity of any individual's perception of the truth. The Creature's take
    on this story, as Walton will himself learn, is rather different from Victor's.

    • 994

  • I thought of Switzerland . . . appalling landscape This description, though clearly conditioned by the rugged and mountainous islands
    to which Victor has retreated, is even more appropriate to the realm of transgressive
    power in which his scientific obsessions are centered. Whenever the sublime erupts
    in Frankenstein, the reader may expect its avatar, Victor's Creature, to make an appearance
    as well.

    • 993

  • an apoplectic fit

    The OED defines apoplexy:

    A malady, very sudden in its attack, which arrests more or less completely the powers
    of sense and motion; it is usually caused by an effusion of blood or serum in the
    brain, and preceded by giddiness, partial loss of muscular power, etc.

    In modern parlance, this would be termed a cerebral hemorrhage. It is not certain
    that the term was applied so specifically in Mary Shelley's day.

    • 992

  • the anguish of recognition

    The phrase is suggestive of something beyond the mere identification of the body.
    Victor surely recognizes his responsibility for this death. Perhaps the extremity
    of his phrase is also intended to accentuate the point at which he finds himself looking,
    as it were, into a mirror, confronting a second self who has been murdered by a being
    who is likewise an extension of himself. The shock, as his reaction strongly testifies,
    is psychologically as well as physically convulsive.

    • 991

  • An eye so full of lofty design Admittedly, the reader will not wish to take such a phrase out of its context, nor
    wholly discount how impressed Walton himself is by his friend's intervention on his
    behalf. Yet at the same time the ambivalence in diction that has surrounded the functioning
    of eloquence since Walton resumed the narration (III:Walton:1, III:Walton:6 and note,
    III:Walton:12 and note) calls attention to this further instance of the double-entendre.
    "Design" may be a synonym for "purpose," the word Walton stresses just below, at the
    end of this day's entry; but it may also bear a sense of calculated histronics. The
    linguistic ambivalence allows Walton and his readers, should they wish, to derive
    opposite conclusions from the same evidence.

    • 990

  • I am quite alone This image of existential solitude is the final allusion of the many in this novel
    to Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, "Alone, alone, all, all alone" (line 232).
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