1077

  • the well balancing of what you may esteem your duties That Victor, who has throughout the novel been unable to fulfill his duties to either
    his family or his Creature, should be able to speak in such measured terms of a balance
    among multiple duties is certainly an indication of the objectivity and even wisdom
    to which he may aspire when he moves outside his own narrow concerns. That he specifically
    steps back from the coercive tone by which he had earlier tried to enlist Walton as
    his agent in murder (III:7:26) likewise testifies to his rediscovery of a moral center
    in his last hours of life.

    • 1082

  • the power of his eloquence Again, a reader senses how double-edged is the idea of eloquence in this novel. On
    the one hand, Victor's oratory energizes the crew in positive thinking and rouses
    them to their tasks. Without this invigoration their situation could degenerate into
    a laxity of spirit and effort perilous to their well-being. Yet, the emptiness of
    mere rhetoric is likewise emphasized here, since the courage roused one day gives
    in to despondency the next. Words relate to reality only tangentially or conditionally,
    and when the reality remains implacable, Victor's signifying words appear hollow substitutes
    for its unavoidable presence.

    • 1081

  • this elevation . . . madness Again, Victor's excesses of language betray him. What if it were actually the case
    that he is insane? Then, the magistrate would only be defusing a tense and socially
    threatening situation by trying to soothe him into emotional tranquillity.

    • 1084

  • eloquence In the very last paragraph of his narration (III:7:26 and note) Victor warned Walton
    to beware of mere eloquence, since the Creature's eloquence had once persuaded him
    to undertake a second monstrous creation to which on sober reflection he should not
    have agreed. Should we therefore construe Walton's faith in Victor's eloquence in
    similar terms? Or does it testify to the innate sympathy that eloquence forges between
    one human being and another? Again, Mary Shelley seems to raise major questions only
    to leave them wholly ambiguous in their import.

    • 1083

  • his powers of eloquence and persuasion Walton refers to the last paragraph of Victor's narration (III:7:26 and note), forgetting,
    it would appear, his friend's later adjustment that he was then "actuated by selfish
    and vicious motives" (III:Walton:28 and note).

    • 1086

  • endeavours to move the passions As with the attention Walton gives to Victor's theatrical "command" in the opening
    paragraph of his resumed narrative (III:Walton:1 and note), we are here made conscious
    of how essentially manipulative (even if it could be argued to be not wholly intentional)
    is Victor's effort to insure that his perspective on events becomes the official record
    handed down to posterity.

    • 1085

  • He is eloquent and persuasive Mary Shelley nicely returns us to the earlier concern with the relationship between
    eloquence and truth, between the representation of action and action itself, well
    aware of how the issue impinges both on her characters (particularly Victor's desire
    to vindicate himself to the world) and on her own art.

    See also I:L4:24 and note; 1831:I:8:31 and note; I:7:5 and note; I:7:13 and note.

    • 1088

  • an English philosopher

    In the sense of "natural philosophy" encountered earlier (I:3:1), a physical scientist.

    • 1087

  • demoniacal enemy In the third volume Victor has increasingly come to refer to the Creature as a "daemon,"
    thus not only dehumanizing him through an association with Satanic evil, but also,
    by conferring on the Creature a transcendental status, absolving himself as his Creator
    from any responsibility for his nature. In effect, linguistically, Victor is canceling
    his own role in the formation of the Creature.

    • 1100

  • Ernest yet lived This is the last reference to Victor's younger brother in the novel. He is left,
    a nineteen-year-old student at the University of Geneva, perhaps to learn a more human
    kind of knowledge than his brother, certainly to carry the family name forward solely
    by himself. He is the single survivor of the catastrophic history surrounding Victor
    Frankenstein.
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