1423

  • Who feared that if I lost all trace I should despair and die The egotism of this statement is less strange than its underlying logic, which is
    that the closed circle of revenge enacts a kind of perverse sympathy in which the
    Creature sustains Victor so that he may continue on his mission to destroy his Creature.
    Throughout this final chapter of Victor's narration Mary Shelley is ingenious in following
    through on the implications of a life cast wholly in an ironic mode.

    • 1426

  • Windsor

    Percy Shelley had been living in Windsor when he first met Mary, and it was to that
    region that they moved in 1817 to set up their household in Marlow. There Mary Shelley
    wrote the principal part of this novel. It is clear that in retrospect Windsor held
    a special place in Mary Shelley's memories: it is the site, for instance, in which
    she bases the early chapters of The Last Man (1826), with their idealized portraits
    of herself and Percy Bysshe Shelley.

    • 1425

  • the wind was unfavorable As would be natural in this environment, the storm descends from the west or northwest,
    picking up energy and precipitation in traversing Lake Geneva. To return to Geneva,
    Victor must drive squarely against the wind. With sails thus rendered useless, only
    manual exertion can prevail against the storm.

    • 1424

  • wild and enthusiastic imagination This encomium to Henry Clerval touches virtually all the thematic stops invoked by
    the novel in its representation of an ideal character, with terms already enveloped
    with multiple associations. Although any single one in excess might reveal a flaw
    productive of personal and social difficulties, in Clerval they reside in a perfect
    dynamic and dialectical balance. Where earlier critics associate Clerval with Percy
    Bysshe Shelley, this passage would be taken as a loving tribute to him.

    • 1420

  • Wearing away his time fruitlessly The 1818 text at this point stipulates that "nearly a year had elapsed" since this
    journey had begun from Geneva, a period the 1831 text identifies as "the latter end
    of September." (There is a month's disparity between the two texts on this point—see
    III:1 in 1818 and 1831). In her revision of the novel Mary Shelley, desiring to underpin
    the professional engagement of Henry Clerval, quietly presses home the irony that
    he, who once indolently indulged himself in imitating eastern poetry (see I:6:14)
    now has, in contrast to Victor, a firm sense of personal mission and a commitment
    to the future. Of course, in Ingolstadt at one point Victor was himself posssessed
    of both traits.

    • 1414

  • one vast hand was extended With his "hand . . . stretched out, seemingly to detain" his double, the Creature
    replicates the gesture in which he first appeared before Victor's eyes, in his bedroom
    in Ingolstadt (I:4:3). The reaction of Walton to his monstrous presence is in stark
    contrast to that evinced on that previous occasion by his creator.

    • 1408

  • I tried to conceal Although Clerval has just been described as like a "former self" to Victor, the difference
    between them involves more than the effect of experience on each man's sense of well-being.
    Victor is, in effect, living a lie, and his lack of openness to Clerval is the actual
    wedge by which their division is being enforced.

    • 1427

  • the wind was contrary, and the stream of the river was too gentle In other words, the boat was encountering a north wind blowing against their further
    progress in that direction. By the time the Rhine reaches Cologne it has broadened
    considerably, abating the strong current it bears through the mountainous country
    further south.

    • 1429

  • the wretch By this time, we are so aware of how this kind of terminology distances and demonizes
    the Creature that Victor's resort to it is perhaps only to be expected.

    • 1430

  • Wretch! At this late point in the novel this vocative is literally true, and the Creature
    will acknowledge it so three paragraphs later. Still, we have to recognize that we
    have come full circle: Walton addresses the Creature with the appellation employed
    by Victor Frankenstein immediately after his creation (I:4:2 and note) and again upon
    reencountering him on the Mer-de-Glace of Mont Blanc (II:2:5 and note). Two sentences
    later he will reiterate Victor's linguistic leap into transcendental terminology,
    demonizing the Creature as a fiend. In his response the Creature picks up on the shift
    in signification, comparing himself both to Adam and to Satan.
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