605

  • wretch—the miserable monster

    Here what had been ambiguous in the earlier use of the word "wretch" (I:4:2) hardens
    into monstrosity, a condition beyond the realm of the human. By the end of the paragraph
    the Creature, in Victor's view, will once more transmogrify into a further dimension
    of estrangement, the supernatural.

    • 606

  • a young girl

    Age is always relative. Mary Shelley was some two months shy of her twentieth birthday
    when she began writing Frankenstein and well past twenty-one when the novel appeared
    in print. Moreover, before she began the novel toward the end of June 1816, she had
    registered experiences highly unusual for a young woman in the constrained environment
    of Britain, including eloping with a married man and twice giving birth. That said,
    it is true that the author was in years yet an adolescent when she wrote this novel
    and that, historically speaking, most of its readers have been struck by a range of
    knowledge, maturity of conception, and intellectual ambition unusual in one so young.

    • 607

  • your gentle and feminine fosterage

    This addition to the text seems motivated by a wish to make Margaret Saville a less
    shadowy presence behind it. The implicit suggestion is that she is sufficiently older
    than her brother to have cared for him when they were orphaned, though, considering
    the twin facts that she has children in her own family and Robert is now 28 years
    old, we must assume that the difference in age would amount to something like a decade
    (III:WC:11). The added phrase also emphasizes the role of feminine nurturer assumed
    by all the prominent women of the novel.

    • 608

  • you will confirm this intelligence soon in your own hand-writing

    However varied the reasons might be for the phenomenon, Frankenstein continually reverts
    to the importance of documentary evidence to substantiate the truth of its events
    or assertions. This will be seen as crucial in the case of the Creature's existence
    and experiences (see II:6:7), of Victor's rectitude as a narrator (see III:WC:2),
    even of Walton's day-to-day account of his voyage (likewise contained in letters "in
    [his] own handwriting"). The pattern suggests that what is at stake here is the underlying
    truth of all fictions.

    • 609

  • abhorred devil The repetitiousness of Victor's diction—it was "abhorred monster!" at the beginning
    of this interview (II:2:8)—seems fitting in circumstances where so many mirrored prisms
    are being deployed simultaneously by Mary Shelley.

    • 610

  • the submission of abject slavery This is a phrase that will resonate through the final third of the novel as the Creature
    and Victor Frankenstein vie for mastery over the other's will. Although fundamentally
    psychological in its formulation, the contention, as this phrase stresses, carries
    political overtones as well.

    • 611

  • like Adam Although the Creature here alludes to Adam's instruction by Raphael, which occupies
    the central third of Milton's epic, the imprecation on his creator that follows in
    the next paragraph bears comparison with the fallen Adam's indictment of God and lament
    that he was ever born (X.720ff). Like Adam, although physically he does not bear the
    imprint of his Creator, the Creature is indissolubly bound to Victor Frankenstein,
    as is indicated by his frequent unconscious doublings in language or gesture.

    • 612

  • a duty As he has before, Alphonse Frankenstein raises before Victor the notion of duty as
    a contractual obligation between individual and family or state (I:1:1, I:3:10).

    • 613

  • the affections of a sensitive being This antiquated terminology bears pausing over. "Sensitive" in this context implies
    both "vitality, "human feeling," and an "independent will." The reciprocity of sensitive
    beings is the foundation of all social interchange; thus, the key to creating a society.

    • 614

  • disgust and affright The explicitly sensual terms with which the Creature characterizes Caroline Frankenstein,
    unknown to him the mother of his creator-father, recalls his reaction to the first
    sight of Safie (II:5:4 and note). Clearly, Safie is in his mind when the paragraph
    ends with the anticipated aversion of a beautiful woman to his form.
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