1197

last autumn This is another sign of the mistaken chronology at this point in the narrative. The
previous autumn Victor spent awaiting his trial. What Elizabeth is referring to is
actually the late summer—the aftermath of the August trip to Mont Blanc—of the previous
year.

1194

I have visited the lakes of Lucerne and Uri Mary Shelley's History of a Six Weeks' Tour recounts her visit to Lucerne and Uri.

1190

I will not The reader may have forgotten, but certainly Victor Frankenstein has not, that he
deserted the ice floe on which Walton's crew had discovered him and boarded the sailing
vessel only because its course lay to the north, the destination toward which his
pursuit of the Creature was leading him (I:L4:8). Now that Walton's ship veers to
the south, remaining aboard can no longer serve his purpose, which is as single-minded
in its vengeance as ever.

1189

it was he . . . nurse Mary Shelley's emphasis is delicate but marked. In his several months of illness
and misery it appears that only late does Victor recognize that there are medical
costs that had to be borne by someone. He has focussed critically on the quality of
the care without inquiring who had accepted the expence on his behalf.

1182

injustice In his petulance Walton equates justice to his crew with injustice to himself. That
larger, disinterested justice is, however, the stronger ethical position, as Walton
himself understood when his crew presented its case to him earlier (III:Walton:16).

1181

a part of the inheritance of Elizabeth This addition to the 1831 text recalls the changed circumstances by which Elizabeth
enters into the Frankenstein household, as the natural daughter of a revolutionary
Milanese aristocrat who had been imprisoned by the Austrian government and had had
his property confiscated (see I:1:9) for being too ardent in the cause of his country's
liberty. Although Alphonse Frankenstein's dealings here might be construed as an honorable,
duty-bound attempt by a citizen of a neutral nation to right a wrong and restore to
Elizabeth what had been rightly hers, it is hard to imagine Mary Shelley, who abhorred
the Austrian occupation of Italy and represented Elizabeth's true father as "nursed
in the antique glory of Italy," not thinking this detail commensurate with the essentially
conservative, state-oriented political views Alphonse exhibits elsewhere (see, for
instance, I:1:1 or I:6:44 and note).

1188

the lovely Isis The Upper Thames River is called the Isis as it flows through Oxford.

1203

until my own life, or that of my adversary, were extinguished Mary Shelley here offers another accentuation of the adversarial masculinist code
that has dominated Victor's perspective on his Creature and blinded him to the dangers
to which he has exposed his loved ones. The melodramatic posturing, it should be emphasized,
does have a purpose if we remind ourselves that this first-person narrative is delivered
to a listener, Robert Walton, who at the end of the next chapter will reenter the
novel. Since Victor is well aware that Walton is preserving this record as an exemplary
warning to later human generations, he has every reason to try to influence the portrait
thus handed down to the future.

1204

Light, feeling, and sense, will pass away In contemplating his end, the Creature logically reverts to the memory of his first
sensations as he became conscious of the world around him (II:3:1 and note).

1202

liberty had been a useless gift In Mary Shelley's households, whether living with her husband or her father, liberty
is the greatest of human gifts. For Victor to call it useless speaks volumes about
the deterioration of his mind and sensibility. It also subtly links his present mental
condition to his continuing sloughing off of personal responsibility upon an abstract
and transcendental destiny.

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