1400

  • tore to pieces the thing On the complex moral spectrum laid out by this novel Victor here engages in the equivalent
    of murder. His destructive burst of passion and pointed denial of humanity to the
    object of his creation, which he calls a thing, reduce him at least to the moral level
    of the Creature, who at this point has likewise been guilty of one murder.

    • 1399

  • You throw a torch Walton's metaphor is prescient, since it is by fire that the Creature plans to consume
    himself (III:Walton:45). It is no coincidence but an extensive of the metaphor that
    Victor appears to have succumbed to a consumptive fever (III:Walton:14).

    • 1389

  • which are to cease but with life Another conspicuous feature of the final chapter is introduced here. Although we
    are close to having completed the narrative circle, returning to Walton's voice part
    way through this chapter, the continual shift of time frames does more than remind
    us of this impending closure. The sudden confrontation of past and future in a sentence
    such as this also serves implicitly to suggest that at the point where Victor locked
    himself into the hermetically sealed enclosure of his obsession, time began to lose
    its normative distinctions.

    • 1388

  • Tintern Abbey Mary Shelley quotes lines 76-83 of the last poem in the 1798 Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth
    and Coleridge, changing first person pronouns to the third person ("or" in line 83
    was regularized by Wordsworth to "nor" only in 1836). The quotation of these celebrated
    lines about natural inspiration underscores the association of Henry Clerval with
    the Romantic poet, and more specifically, might recall Byron's remark that Percy Shelley
    "dosed" him with Wordsworth during the summer of 1816.

    • 1387

  • Tilbury Fort This fortress was erected as the major barrier to the Spanish fleet if it attempted
    to sail up the Thames. The Earl of Leicester's troops were stationed here in 1588.

    • 1386

  • thrust your sword From the language of the legalistic contract, expressing at least an implicit ideal
    of fidelity, Victor advances to that of the secret assassin. Here in the last sentence
    of his narration, we are confronted with the mentality of a murderer. In that regard,
    at the very least, the doubling with his creature is absolute.

    • 1385

  • this deposition did not in the least interest me A reader could sense a cultural dislocation and estrangement behind this remark.
    On the other hand, the lack of concern for the plight of others unless it bears in
    some way on his own subtly underscores Victor's egotism here.

    • 1384

  • She was thinner Characteristically, Victor construes Elizabeth's state of health in reference to
    himself. At the age of twenty-two she should not be so beyond her prime. Clearly,
    worry over the last two years has taken its toll. Although Mary Shelley maintains
    her undeviating focus on Victor, this momentary description illuminates the cost of
    his obsession and detachment from Elizabeth on her state of mind and body. This is
    as close to an inner life as Elizabeth ever manifests.

    • 1383

  • the Tower

    By the eighteenth century the Tower of London had been reduced to a tourist attraction,
    housing the crown jewels, the royal armor modelled by full-size wooden figures, and
    a menagerie dominated by the great cats.

    • 1382

  • Are you then safe Victor's first words to his father in fourteen months must, if we detach ourselves
    from his obsessive perspective, seem more than merely odd. They are the expression
    of what has become a deeply paranoid personality.
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