1361

  • Suddenly a heavy storm of rain descended Mary Shelley's readers might easily construe the storm as merely providing a conventional
    Gothic atmosphere in which to wrap the suspense of this long-awaited evening. But
    the storm functions more specifically as a leitmotif associated with the sublime power
    of nature, of forces beyond human control, and of the Creature. There actually are
    only two such Gothic storms in Frankenstein. The first was also set in the environs
    of Lake Geneva and occured as Victor, returning from Ingolstadt, sought out the scene
    of his brother William's death at Plainpalais. There in a brilliant flash of lightning
    he encountered the form of his Creature for the first time since the night of its
    creation. That scene in the sixth chapter in the first volume (I:6:20) thus operates
    as a symmetrical counterpart to this other storm of the sixth chapter of the third
    volume, anticipating the reemergence of the Creature into Victor's domestic idyll.

    • 1360

  • the numerous steeples of London

    Coming up the Thames, these late eighteenth-century travellers remark the objects
    that rise above the cityscape, which in general would have otherwise been limited
    to perhaps five or six storeys in height. In these circumstances the steeples of the
    London churches would have called attention to themselves, as they include many architectural
    masterpieces.

    • 1359

  • St. Andrew's

    A coastal city in Fife, St. Andrew's is the site of the oldest university in Scotland,
    founded in 1411. However impatient Victor represents himself, he and Henry Clerval
    go well out of their way to visit medieval sites on their way to Perth.

    • 1354

  • The spirits that guarded me Two paragraphs before Victor hypothesized the active intervention of the spirit world
    on his behalf. By this point he has convinced himself that he is under their protection.
    This is a further example of how in the last pages of his narration Victor moves further
    and further beyond the boundaries of a normative rationality.

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • 1368

  • yet another may succeed Victor's complete self-contradiction in his last moments mirrors the novel's ambivalence
    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.

    • 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.

    • 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).
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