It may be difficult for the reader to suspend prior knowledge of the plot at this
point and recall that Victor's one sighting of his Creature in the vicinity of Geneva
does not constitute proof that he has done anything transgressive, let alone has accomplished
the murder of William and the framing of Justine. Given what Victor actually knows
of his Creature, this first greeting of him would seem to testify to a psychological
disturbance, if not a real derangement. Certainly, he does not treat him as the prodigal
son returning to his rightful father.

The diction seems deliberately intended to evoke the end of Chapter 5 of Volume 1,
where a full year later Victor and Clerval return from their walking tour around Ingolstadt—"with
feelings of unbridled joy" (I:5:19)— to be greeted by a letter from Victor's father
announcing the death of his brother William.

The Creature had, of course, seen Victor before, but it was by dim moonlight, with
Victor first in bed, then rushing hastily from the room (I:4:3). This is his first
conscious encounter with another human being, whose mundane business is wholly disrupted
by this unanticipated and sublime intrusion.

The Creature's sense of his destiny stands in marked contrast to Victor's. Whereas
the scientist sees himself as passively compelled by his destiny within an obsessive
solitude, whether in his experiments with the principle of life or, later, in pursuit
of the being that is its result, the Creature conceives of himself instinctively within
a domesticated social context where he will be guided by others toward his self-realization.

In Paradise Lost Satan bears this designation (I.81)—or is named Arch-foe (VI.259)—but
it is ironically reversed here to apply to the figure who stands in place of God.
Yet, to contemplate the phrase in isolation is to discern serious implications about
the relation between sire and scion of a type that have greatly concerned modern psychoanalytic
discourse.

Here the Creature joins the other principal male figures of the novel in the diction
of burning intellectual ambition, repeating the phrasing earlier uttered by Walton
and by Victor Frankenstein: see I:L3:1 and I:2:7.

Although Mary Shelley in this chapter seems deliberately to be emphasizing the Creature's
"ardour" to place it within the context of the ambitions driving both Walton and Victor
Frankenstein (see paragraph 9 above and note), she is effectively contrasting them.
In the Creature's education language has a moral function, allowing communication
among beings and operating as an instrument by which they may think and feel in common.
True sympathy, the object of his utmost desire, is thus dependent upon language.

At this point Clerval has been in Ingolstadt for a full year. Some months earlier,
as the previous paragraph indicates, he had been introduced by Victor to the "several
professors of the university." Here, as elsewhere (I:3:10), Mary Shelley quietly underscores
the ease with which Victor shirks his family duties.

Candor is an important character trait in the novel, and it is to Walton's credit
that he so naturally evinces it. His openness will elicit a similar frankness from
Victor Frankenstein, who for the first time in his existence will tell his entire
story. But that narration, then, raises a serious problem. Not only are there many
signs of instability in it, the major one being Victor's wish to revise it even as
it goes along (III:WC:4 and note); but his earlier lack of candor with his family
and friends is akin to dishonesty, which, if so common a practice throughout his mature
life, must raise serious doubts about the truthfulness of the narration that comprises
the bulk of this novel.

Candor is an important character trait in the novel, and it is to Walton's credit
that he so naturally evinces it. His openness will elicit a similar frankness from
Victor Frankenstein, who for the first time in his existence will tell his entire
story. But that narration, then, raises a serious problem. Not only are there many
signs of instability in it, the major one being Victor's wish to revise it even as
it goes along (Walton, and note); but his earlier lack of candor with his family and
friends is akin to dishonesty, which, if so common a practice throughout his mature
life, must raise serious doubts about the truthfulness of the narration that comprises
the bulk of this novel.