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quietly establishes his link with Walton, who in the immediate context of the narrative
recital has likewise altruistically attended to Victor's well-being without any sense
of obligation or self-congratulation.
quietly establishes his link with Walton, who in the immediate context of the narrative
recital has likewise altruistically attended to Victor's well-being without any sense
of obligation or self-congratulation.
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so, he is unable to deny the being's fundamental claim to a primary human attribute.
1373
But the legalistic, contractual mode in which he assaults Walton testifies strongly
to the closed tyranny of mind in which he has been laboring now for many months.
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earlier when Victor and Henry Clerval returned from their happy perambulations in
the region of Ingolstadt to find Alphonse Frankenstein's letter describing William's
death. Such innocent pleasure in natural renewal, Victor asserts, is no longer possible
for him (see I:5:17).
1371
uses virtually the same words to explain how she escaped her father in Leghorn and
made it north to the De Lacey's cottage in Germany? That episode, impelled by love,
occurs at the center and southern extremity of the novel; Victor, in this last chapter
of his narrative, stands near its outer edge and sets out for the far north driven
by a hatred that in its passion and compulsion seems a mirror reflection of Safie's
desire: see II:6:19.
The statement also contains a second bearing, which is that, although it is not explicitly
mentioned by Victor, with the demise of Alphonse Frankenstein, Victor, as first-born
son, has inherited the family estate and can spend his inheritance in whatever fashion
he chooses. No longer need he follow his father's admonition to attend a university
(see I:2:1) or ask his permission to travel to the British Isles (see III:1:11). In
effect, Victor is now the patriarch of his family.
1370
by which Victor judges his actions. His sense of pronounced guilt in the face of a
normative cultural sanction of his innocence moves him further into an alienated posture
that seems identical with what we have come, in the second volume of the novel, to
characterize as that of the Creature.
1369
"misery made me a fiend" (see II:2:11 and note)—may view this generalized platitude
with a more sharply focussed perspective than Victor brings to bear on it. As is so
often the case, he misses the connnection between his experiences and those of the
being he created.
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over the conflicting claims of domestic retreat and aspiring self-assertion, which
are in turn poles that themselves comprise a dialectical field over which Romanticism
continually expresses much ambivalence. The particular terms of Victor's last utterance
have a somewhat chilling effect: at what, a reader may well wonder, does Victor contemplate
another's success? If in the realm in which he has failed, assuming the role of God,
we may envision from Victor's experience a greater, even a catastrophic, failure.
Even as he moves linguistically to open up possibility, the lingering effects of his
example resist his optimism.
1367
of false consciousness, as Victor charges himself with a solemn revenge for murders
of human beings yet supports his mission by killing other sentient creatures. Readers
will recall that, in contrast, the Creature is a strict vegetarian.
1366
looks to a melodramatic struggle-to-the-death to resolve their conflict, thus substituting
a simply physical resolution for one that might embody ethical or psychological justice.
Once again, one may read here a female author's sense of the conventions of masculinist
fictions, whether those of art or real life. (For other instances where Victor similarly
falls back on physical competitiveness, see II:2:5, II:2:6, III:3:16 and III:3:17).