1258

My letter was calm and affectionate A less calming letter could scarcely have been written to a fiancée who had not heard
from her lover for the better part of two years. Perhaps, Mary Shelley writes with
her tongue in her cheek, wishing to stress the strange air of unreality that has become
habitual by now with Victor. His idea of "perfect confidence," after all, is to let
on that he has a "dreadful" secret and then to require that Elizabeth not ask him
a word about it. The irony is lost on him, though one assumes not on the reader. Unfortunately
for Elizabeth, she, indeed, never questions him about his odd revelation.

1257

my imagination . . . sting me As on several earlier occasions in the novel (see I:3:11, I:4:18, I:6:24) the Romantic
imagination is here connected with inner torment rather than transcendence. Instead
of regenerating the psychic economy, the imagination preys across its isolated and
wholly enclosed spaces.

1256

they all died by my hands This is a further instance in which Victor's new level of candor is striking in its
unblinking justice. Although it is easy to dismiss this language as characteristically
hyperbolic and histrionic, to do so without maintaining a regard for the intensification
of his self-understanding would be unjust. The sense of connectedness he now acknowledges
with his Creature will become the distinguishing feature of the last movement of the
novel.

1255

it was to be my grave. As earlier in the chapter (III:3:19), Victor's egotism is a barrier to his recognizing
where the actual threats to his well-being are lodged.

1254

my friends The plural form appears to indicate that Victor has deduced from the sympathetic
concern of the benevolent Mr. Kirwin that he is as true a friend to him as his father.

1253

my fiendish enemy. Victor first designates his creature as an "enemy" shortly after his creation (I:4:12),
and the Creature, in turn, after the collapse of his aspirations with the DeLacey's
thinks of Victor in a like capacity (II:8:30). Throughout this last chapter, however,
Victor has conceptualized his Creature wholly in adversarial terms, again and again
referring to him as an enemy.

1252

my eyes . . . death Whatever the accruing psychological similarities between Victor and his Creature,
this is the first indication that Victor is also growing into his physical counterpart.
Perhaps, these signs of death are to be read from a moral perspective, as indicating
how deeply implicated with spiritual decay is Victor's retreat from normal human interaction.

1251

what were my duties with regard to this destroyer "Duty" has been a charged concept throughout Frankenstein, invoked in regard to family
affairs, social obligations, legal contracts, uses of knowledge—even, in Victor's
rationale for suspending his second creation, the human race. This occasion is different
from all the rest, involving the question of what is the moral duty of a human to
another sentient but alien being. This assertion of the priority of moral obligation
requires willed self-abnegation on Walton's part. No other figure in the novel, certainly
not Victor Frankenstein, has ever assumed that the Creature was owed anything.

1250

such is not my destiny Victor reiterates what he has said before (III:4:43, III:7:5), accentuating the reader's
strong sense that he has built a conceptual prison around himself. If the purpose
of one's life is solely to bring death to another, then the notion of a vital or life
force has been systematically inverted. Such a psychological condition is clearly
pathological.

1249

my destiny . . . close The wrenching shift in narrative stance into a present "now" accentuates the difference
subtly in play up to this moment between Victor's self-accusations and his actual
avowal of culpability. The man talking to his father knows that he is innocent of
the crime for which he is languishing in jail. The one speaking in Walton's cabin
nearly three years later, in contrast, has locked the key on his own imprisonment.

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