1345

  • smooth and placid as a southern sea Victor's only experience of a southern sea would appear to have come at the beginning
    of this last trip in pursuit of the Creature, embarked on from a French Mediterranean
    port (III:7:9). On its surface his sardonic comment roundly indicts the crew for moral
    and spiritual laxity. Yet, on second thought, an even stronger counterforce ironically
    deflates the surface terms. This ironic inversion begins as we recognize the considerable
    negative connotations from earlier in the novel already adhering to this celebration
    of the "glorious" (I:L1:6 and note, I:L2:3 and note, and III:Walton:6 and note). On
    top of those resonances, the reference to "a southern sea" should remind the knowledgeable
    reader of the last voyage undertaken by Ulysses and his crew in search of glory, a
    voyage that took them far into the unknown southern sea where their ship foundered.
    This is the subject of Canto 26 of Dante's Inferno, which is likewise the source upon
    which Tennyson depended for his dramatic monologue, "Ulysses," written in 1833. In
    Dante's rendition of this story, for all his heroic posturing, Ulysses has led his
    men to their death for nothing beyond a meaningless personal glory. For this act of
    essential treachery he is lodged near the bottom of hell for eternity.

    It is worth remarking that, in her draft of this passage, Mary Shelley originally
    wrote "summer lake," and the phrase "southern sea" was inserted above it in P. B.
    Shelley's hand. This interpolation, of course, would have had to have been agreed
    to by Mary Shelley, presumably after some discussion of the appropriateness of the
    intertextual context the phrase evokes.

    • 1348

  • some destiny Victor's perhaps unconscious withdrawal into vague euphemism to match his father's
    rhetoric here strongly suggests a lack of candor. It also indicates that, however
    self-accusing he may be, he has accepted no real responsibility for the actions of
    his Creature.

    • 1312

  • only regretted . . . understanding

    At this point Elizabeth Lavenza is about twenty-one years old. Two years younger,
    Mary Shelley has spent a good part of her childhood in Scotland, has twice been to
    France and Switzerland, and has travelled up the Rhine through Germany and Holland
    (none of it under parental guidance or supervision). That her experiences were unusual
    is reflected in this observation, with its glancing feminist edge.

    • 1311

  • I cannot forbear recording it Walton, who cannot resist the impulse to continue a creation whose end he cannot
    predict, bears an uncanny resemblance to the obsessive Victor Frankenstein racing
    to the denouement of the Creature's birth in Ingolstadt (I:3:8). The difference, and
    it is one maintained throughout the novel's self-reflexive mirroring of its own operations,
    is that writing has no effect in the world until it is read. The writer's obsession
    with the text may seem both narcissistic and solipsistic, but this antisocial dimension
    is confined to a conceptual plane. Still, Walton's unselfconscious acquiescence in
    the claims of what seems to him irresistable reinforces our sense that what drives
    Victor is little different from the passions we all share as human beings.

    • 1310

  • The recollection of this injustice The Creature is an acute reader of his own history, aware that amid his accumulated
    experiences of victimization some cases were freer than others from any possible mitigation.
    He concentrates here on the two instances (see II:7:38 and II:8:19) where his own
    disinterested benevolence was rewarded with a violent attack on his person. For all
    Victor's repeated threats to grapple with his Creature, it is interesting to observe
    that after his creation he never again physically touches him.

    • 1323

  • roarings like thunder This is the sound of the "ground sea," which had also been heard some five weeks
    earlier, on the afternoon of 31 July (I:L4:5 and note). The breakup of the ice on
    that occasion cut Victor Frankenstein off from his Creature, and he remembered its
    violent sound (III:7:24 and note) in terms similar to those used here by Walton.

    • 1326

  • Mont Salêve This is a nice touch on Mary Shelley's part. The attentive reader will nod in recognition
    that the previous time this mountain was reported as being in Victor's line of vision,
    two years earlier, he had descried his Creature climbing its nearly perpendicular
    face (I:6:22).

    • 1328

  • what a scene has just taken place Characteristic of the structural ingenuity of Frankenstein, its final scene is a
    recollected flashback. Chronologically speaking, this brief paragraph, with its self-reflexiveness
    about its own artistic imperatives and capacities, constitutes something of a final
    bow, the last words of a novel that, from end to end, has held a mirror up to its
    own operations as a primary example of the creation that is its theme.

    • 1327

  • the same boat A realistic perspective on this evidence might emphasize the fact that, since both
    the Creature's and Victor's boats are Scottish in make, they would therefore in all
    probability resemble one another closely. But Mary Shelley seems to have another purpose
    in mind. Having already forced an aura of the uncanny upon this scene through the
    great distance of travel and coincidence of destination of her characters, she subtly
    reinforces the interchangeability of Creature and creator that will progressively
    intensify as the novel moves towards its conclusion.

    • 1331

  • the lessons of my Seneca

    Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BCE — 65 CE). A leading philosopher and statesman of the
    mid-first century, Seneca was also a playwright, whose nine tragedies celebrate stoic
    resignation. As a statesman, his practice was anything but what such a philosophical
    stance might indicate, for he was an activist not a conservative. He was Nero's tutor
    and later acted behind the scenes to secure the emperor's power. He retired from the
    court in the year 62 to devote himself to philosophy, but three years later he was
    denounced as taking part in the conspiracy of Piso against the emperor. Ordered by
    Nero to commit suicide, Seneca took his own life with stoic resignation and fortitude.
    It is not, it would appear, in Seneca's writings but in his example that Walton looks
    for comfort in his peril.

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