Despite his conversion to the study of modern chemistry, Victor never relinguishes
the agenda of ancient alchemy with which he began his scientific education.

As with "courage," the martial virtue to which Mary Shelley here yokes "resolution,"
this word also evokes the characteristic diction of Milton's Satan. In arising to
call his forces to assemble, he marks his agenda:

     how we may henceforth most offend
Our enemy, our own loss how repair,
How overcome this dire calamity,
What reinforcement we may gain from hope,
If not what resolution from despair.
-- I.187-191

When Satan ends the assembly by having his fallen legions endorse his plans to corrupt
the garden of Eden, Milton's language emphasizes the force of his resolution.

          Thus saying, rose
The Monarch, and prevented all reply;
Prudent, lest from his resolution raised,
Others among the chief might offer now,
Certain to be refused, what first they feared.
-- II.466-470

As understandable as this resolve is (and, perhaps more important to the reader, as
necessary to the plot line as it may be), still Victor's silence is fundamentally
problematical on moral grounds, constituting a denial of his own responsibility and,
through an absence of candor on both private and public levels, a failure of essential
human sympathy and justice.

Even as he honors Alphonse Frankenstein, Victor does so in terms that distance his
father into something of an icon for the principle of patriarchy itself.

Victor uses the same diction in thanking Walton for rescuing him: "You have benevolently
restored me to life" (I:L4:18 and note).

This long passage, almost a tirade, was omitted from the third and later editions.
It is one of the clear occasions where Mary Shelley reveals herself as her father's
daughter, justifying the Quarterly Review's attack on her novel for its Godwinian
politics. For Godwin's treatment of retribution, see Political Justice, Book VII ("Of
Crimes and Punishments"), particularly Chapter 4, "Of the Application of Coercion."