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).

    • 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.

    • 1403

  • To you first entering on life In regard to this curious reminder of the present tense in which Victor narrates
    the story of his life, it is important to recall that, far from being Victor's junior,
    Walton is 28 years old at this point in the account, one year older than Victor. A
    useful point of comparison is the exchange between the simple Chamois Hunter and Manfred
    in the second act of Byron's Manfred, the dramatic poem he began in the summer of
    1816 and set in the same Alpine wilderness as the second volume of Mary Shelley's
    Frankenstein.

    • 1402

  • the tour of Scotland alone Obviously, Victor needs to isolate himself in order to carry out his scientific labors.
    On the other hand, the phraseology here may be seen as indicative of an antisocial
    instinct that has been so long indulged as to have become an essential aspect of his
    character.

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • 1405

  • trembling with passion We are returned to the language of "ardour" associated with Victor's earlier obsession
    with his scientific experiments and to his lack of self-control in their pursuit.
    What is new here is the sudden resort to unchecked and criminal violence.

    • 1404

  • trembled violently

    This is also the phrase used to depict Felix De Lacey upon his last appearance in
    the novel (II:8:11 and note).

    • 1373

  • swear That Victor has no right to implicate Walton in his vendetta goes without saying.
    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.

    • 1374

  • sympathies Although Victor dehumanizes the creature, it is interesting to recognize that, even
    so, he is unable to deny the being's fundamental claim to a primary human attribute.
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