This could mean, narrowly, that Felix had been educated for the French diplomatic
corps or, more broadly, to function in the upper levels of the government bureaucracy.
Whatever the case, there is a clear link between his family and expectations and those
of Victor Frankenstein, whose father and forefathers, from a strong sense of civic
duty, have held positions of public trust in Geneva.

As Victor is self-conscious about the shape and impact of his narrative (see I:7:13
and note), so is his Creature. His question also curiously echoes Justine Moritz's
recognition that facts alone are not sufficient to exonerate her (I:7:5 and note);
if she is to establish her claim to innocence she must move her auditors. Aside from
such thematic continuities within the novel, this issue is likewise very much alive
in the poetry that Percy Shelley was writing contemporaneously, particularly in The
Revolt of Islam, where Cythna's eloquence is an important element in spreading political
and cultural enlightenment: see particularly Canto 8.

Mary Shelley knows from experience of what she writes. There were actually two such
huts on Montanvert above the Sea of Ice, one made of wood and erected by an Englishman
named Blair in 1779, and the other of stone constructed by a Frenchmen, Desportes,
in the year 1795 (Charles Edward Mathews, The Annals of Mont Blanc [Boston: L.C. Page,
1900]).

Not only does the Creature's terrible solitude remind us of the mental isolation into
which Victor Frankenstein finds himself plunged, but it also takes us back to the
original scene in which this narrative is being recited, upon a ship in the midst
of the Arctic Ocean, remote from either land or other human beings. As in Walton's
letters (Letter I and Letter II), so here one cannot fail to hear the echo of Coleridge's
"Rime of the Ancient Mariner": "Alone, alone, all, all alone,/ Alone on a wide wide
sea!" (line 232-3).

As earlier in his ruminations about language acquisition (II:4:9), the Creature unconsciously
adopts the exact phrasing of Victor Frankenstein (I:2:7) as he looks forward to his
education at Ingolstadt.

Heavy irony attends this choice of diction. Not only are we reminded of the "ardent"
desire with which, when young, Victor (I:2:7) (and Walton—I:L1:2) eagerly pursued
scientific knowledge, but we can associate with that innocent desire the more complicated
ardency driving Victor obsessively toward the scientific breakthrough that was the
birth of this Creature: see I:3:1 and note. This is the point in the novel when the
language of intense love first is used to embody the designs of a passionate hatred.

It is a curious coincidence that the last time Victor called upon the heavens (I:6:22)
he instantly beheld his Creature. If Mary Shelley intended to signify something through
this coincidence, she certainly left no hint, and it has not been explained by commentators.

The same characteristic has been the subject of our recent focus, as Victor's anguished
frustration in Justine's prison cell issues in this extraordinary physical reaction
(I:7:27). Earlier we witnessed the same phenomenon when Victor was brought aboard
Walton's ship (I:L4:10 and note), which, since it is an event almost contemporary
with his present narrative account must give us a sense of how habitual this reaction
has become; also how revelatory of psychological (and moral) disturbance it is. Two
other characters engage in the same passionate behavior: the Creature (III:3:13) and
Milton's Satan.

As has already been evident in earlier chapters, in Mary Shelley's perspective the
imagination is a power at once of great dynamic force and ethically neutral in its
operations, leading to good or evil ends depending on the psychological framework
in which it exists. The darker side of this mental attribute has been especially invoked
as events in the novel have taken a tragic turn: see, for instance, I:3:7 and note,
I:4:18 and note, I:6:27 and note.

The reader observes a carefully registered journey from the beautiful into the sublime,
from what Elizabeth has proposed as a domestic enclosure, warding off the unimaginable
and protecting the family unit from threat, into another confrontation, at least for
Victor, with elemental nature, with destruction and with fresh creation. The transitional
point of this rite of passage is marked by the village of St. Martin in the Shelleys'
account of their excursion to Chamonix in History of a Six Weeks' Tour.