1238

  • the monster of my creation Of all Victor's terms for the being he has brought to life this seems the most directly
    applicable to a true understanding of the dynamics that underlie the identification
    of him as monstrous. No longer merely a "monster" in and of himself, here the Creature
    is designated as being created in such a form. Victor thus tacitly acknowledges his
    responsibility for making his Creature monstrous, whether in deed or by the mere utterance
    of the word.

    • 1237

  • the monster . . . the daemon The interchangeability of this nomenclature is by this point in Victor's career habitual.
    The Creature is thoroughly demonized in his mind.

    • 1236

  • it modelled my feelings Whether impelled by the verb "modelled" (1818) or "moulded" (1831), this is a fascinating
    phrase. In the second case, although the revised edition lacks the epigraph from Milton's
    Paradise Lost that marks the original title page ("Did I request thee, Maker, from
    my clay / To mould me Man?"—X.743-44 ), Mary Shelley's recast diction seems to recall
    it with a deliberate irony. In this reconstitution the new Adam, lacking all free
    will, is animated by his own revenge, which is the pattern, the "mould," established
    by Satan in Milton's epic.

    On a mundane rather than cosmic level, however, we might want to contemplate what
    it is to have one's entire emotional life formed by the sentiment of revenge? In accord
    with the loss of "voluntary thought" mentioned in the previous sentence, Victor also
    gives up any feeling, any instinctual sense of identification, that might lead him
    away from his obsessive rage against his double. He thus confesses himself as being
    wholly shaped, both intellectually and emotionally, by this bond of negation. As he
    embarks on a pursuit of high adventure, he casts himself, ironically, as a totally
    passive victim of his own choosing.

    • 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).
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