Switzerland was the single self-governing democracy in Europe in the later eighteenth
century. Although England sported liberal political ideals as a factor distinguishing
the nation from the rest of Europe, in practice its long battle against the French
and Napoleon had fostered a conservative reaction in which "republican" and "jacobin"
were virtually synonymous terms of opprobrium. This was particularly the case in the
years after Waterloo when, without an external enemy by which to rally the nation
and, experiencing a severe recession as a result of its rapid and radical demobilization,
the government was fearful of any expression of political dissent and began to prosecute
broadly to suppress it. Although Victor's emphasis on his family distinction seems
a gesture toward the familiar hierarchical structures of English society, the fact
that the first sentence of the novel as it presents itself ends with so defiant, if
understated, an assertion of liberal political values indicates the presence of a
submerged political viewpoint that observant readers will be able to detect throughout
the novel. That its contemporary readers would have recognized this aspect of the
novel is indicated by how strongly politics influenced its reviews, particularly the
one that appeared in the conservative Quarterly Review.

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.

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."