1235

  • miserable wretch By this point in the novel's development, these terms have become interchangeably
    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).

    • 1234

  • miserable wretch There is no sharper indication of the way in which doubling patterns operate in this
    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).

    • 1233

  • miserably pent . . . wretchedness The ironic undertone of identification between Victor and his Creature continues
    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.

    • 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.

    • 1230

  • 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).

    • 1228

  • 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.
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