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.

    • 1381

  • the devil Curiously, with so many references to the Creature as diabolical, only once earlier
    has Victor used this flat substantive, when he glimpsed the Creature on the Plainpalais
    outside Geneva after uttering a similar imprecation to the heavens.

    • 1378

  • title here

    Main text here.

    • 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.

    • 1362

  • The story is too connected Doubtless, Victor, who has in numerous critical situations been unwilling to explain
    his case for fear of not being believed, worries about how he can convey his deposition
    so as to produce conviction. Yet, once again, the language reminds us that we are
    in the midst of a narrative whose truth is totally dependant on the veracity of the
    narrator. Victor likewise makes much of its internal consistency to Walton as he begins
    the narration (I:L4:30). What this detail adds is the realization that Victor's is
    truly what Nathaniel Hawthorne termed a "twice-told tale," having, with the exception
    of its final chapter, been already rehearsed in the judge's chamber. The reiteration
    of such a tale of fatally transgressed boundaries recalls the context provided by
    the same sort of obsessive repetition in Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

    • 1364

  • Strasburgh

    The idea here is that Victor would travel northeast to Basel on the confines of Switzerland,
    thence follow the Rhine to Strasbourg, where he would be met by Clerval who, suspending
    his course of studies at the University of Ingolstadt, would have travelled west across
    Germany to join him. The two would then proceed north by boat through Germany into
    Holland where the Rhine empties into the North Sea just beyond Rotterdam. This is
    essentially the return route followed by Mary Godwin and Percy Shelley in their 1814
    excursion memorialized in A History of a Six Weeks' Tour.

    • 1367

  • I generally subsisted on the wild animals In the vegetarian Shelley household this information would carry an implicit ring
    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

  • A deadly struggle would take place Although Victor is self-evidently no match in strength with his creature, he continually
    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).

    • 1365

  • the strange chances that have lately occured Mary Shelley's diction indicates how deliberately she has plotted these "strange
    chances" to seem beyond the ordinary expectations of causality, whether in a human
    or a novelistic sphere. Such uncanny events are, however, a customary feature of the
    gothic novel, and it is at points like this that one feels that the author fully recognizes
    the heritage she is exploiting.

    • 1363

  • St. Paul's

    In the eighteenth century the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, after St. Peter's in Rome
    the largest structure in the world, dominated the London cityscape.

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