Victor refers to Ernest, now 17 years old. That he thinks it his duty to "protect"
his father and brother has an ironic edge to it, since his own continuing presence
and actions are what pose the immediate threat to their well-being.

In accordance with Enlightenment social thought, notably the writings of the Earl
of Shaftesbury and his many followers, sympathy is the means by which the Creature
becomes educated both physically and morally. It has a dual private and public dimension,
making the Creature aspire to higher personal goals, as well as fostering in him a
desire for civilized human relations.

Although the later writings of Percy Bysshe Shelley cannot be cited as indicating
his influence here, still his Defence of Poetry is continually concerned with the
moral impact of literature on its readers. There is one passage, in particular, that
appears to gloss the psychological operations the Creature is experiencing in this
first endeavor to enlarge his existence through books: "The great instrument of moral
good is the imagination. . ."

The Creature's experiences have given a nuanced sense of the meaning of sympathy.
It is not a superficial kindness or momentary expression of compassion, but an essential
aspect of what it is to live as a human being, a necessity.

The capacity to name, or abuse by naming—and to judge, or misjudge—are intimately
allied throughout this novel. This is even truer of the stance one takes to the object
of naming and judging. As William confidently assures the Creature, his father has
been accorded the power to punish by this society: William adopts the same tone and
attitude of natural superiority. Perhaps it was implictly present from the family
expectations underscored in the first sentence of Victor's narrative (I:1:1) as well.
Given the emotional chords that have resonated from William's death for eleven chapters
and the epithets with which he has been honored ("little darling William" by Elizabeth
[I:5:7], "that sweet child . . . who was so gentle, yet so gay" by Alphonse [I:6:3],
"dear angel" by Victor [I:6:25]), his sheer childish nastiness surprizes us and, though
it does not justify his murder, makes the Creature's bumbling attempt to quiet him
comprehensible.

A family reduced to this level of poverty would be unlikely to afford candles, which,
generally speaking, in the eighteenth century were among household luxuries. A peasant
in the northern part of Europe would be most likely to burn rush—dried reeds—for light.

The logic of desire is played out through this paragraph to such an extent that, in
the abstract at least, the answer to the question is already implicit in the disparity
the Creature feels between himself and the De Lacey household. The thirst for perfection
and incumbent awareness of personal inadequacy is a theme often encountered in the
poetry of Lord Byron (e.g. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Canto 4, 122ff.) and Percy Bysshe
Shelley (e.g. "Lines Written among the Euganean Hills") during this period.

In a boating accident during the summer Percy Bysshe Shelley, who could not swim,
fell overboard and sank to the bottom of Lake Geneva, from which he had to be rescued.
Speculative biography has discovered an urge toward suicide in the event and has connected
it with these ruminations of Victor's.

Here one senses the imprint of Godwin's method of progressively discriminating the
necessary components of abstract ethical concepts. Virtue, and to a less degree vice,
are repeatedly used as markers for social justice in the Enquiry concerning Political
Justice, whose extended title continues as "and Its Influence on General Virtue and
Happiness." Particular attention is paid to these concepts in Book I, Chapter 3 ("The
Moral Characters of Men Originate in their Perceptions"), Book 4, Chapter 6 ("Inferences
from the Doctrine of Necessity"), Book 4, Chapter 8 ("Of the Principle of Virtue"),
Book 4, Chapter 9 ("Of the Tendency of Virtue"), and Book 5, Chapter 2 ("Of Education").

This phrase carries a significant freight. Although it might be read as one more occasion
in which Victor yields up his distinctive identity, substituting an obscure destiny
in the process of fulfillment for his innate responsibility for events, in fact this
necessity is driven by his own remorse, which is so acute that it can never be assuaged.
Although he seems unaware of what he is doing, he is actually claiming responsibility
for that destiny.