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.

The beautiful, in this formulation, would seem to be a characteristic understood only
within a human context. That is to say, until the Creature can identify himself with
human concerns and human emotions, he cannot distinguish the beautiful. The corollary
of this, however, may not be so honorific to humanity. The birds with whom the creature
first identified in paragraph four above seem wholly unconcerned with the sublime;
but all humans are terrified of it and flee.

The language once again affirms the Creature's affinity with nature and natural forces:
his atavistic rage is a sublime emotional storm. Yet, we should recall, the same is
true of that of the exemplary polished gentleman, Felix, at the end of the previous
chapter (II:7:38).

Victor stands below the Aiguille du Dru (12,320 feet).

From Walter Woodburn Hyde, "The Ascent of Mont Blanc," in National Geographic, 24:8
(1913), 861-942.

This is a tote-sack or shoulder bag.

The Shelleys witnessed such an avalanche on their excursion to Chamonix: see Letter
4 of A History of a Six Weeks' Tour, where the diction is very close to that of this
passage.

The creature leaves the ruins of the De Lacey cottage about a year after he arrived
to take refuge there.

Even in social circumstances like this family outing Victor's separation of himself
from his companions is conspicuous. The extreme variability of his movements here
seems intended to remind us of his condition when he welcomed Clerval to Ingolstadt
(I:4:12), hysterical and on the verge of a nervous breakdown.