William Godwin, 1756-1836, political philosopher and novelist, husband of Mary Wollstonecraft,
and father of Mary Shelley.

Godwin's works, including works of political philosophy (most importantly An Enquiry
concerning Political Justice) and several novels (including Caleb Williams and St.
Leon), advocate intellectual self-development through the rule of reason, personal
freedom bordering on political anarchy, the dismantling of inherited institutions,
religious liberalism, and disinterested justice.

Political Justice emphasizes the deleterious impact of all systems of government on
the ethical and intellectual development of individual human beings. In this systematically
argued critique Godwin posits the ultimate perfectibility of mankind if freed from
repressive social structures. In his novels Godwin obliquely underscores these same
philosophical and social issues, adding to them a continuing gallery of portraits
of male figures whose obsessions and self-regard are supported by the patriarchal
institutions of modern civilization. Both his philosophical and fictional concerns
are, in turn, strongly reflected in the characterization and the events of Frankenstein.

It appears from this paragraph that the only avocation in Geneva is getting married.
Victor's lack of desire to fit the pattern of his friends stands out in sharp contrast.

The major dissimilitude in this description is between highly conventional notions
of essential masculine and feminine attributes. Whether this is Victor's mode of categorizing,
Mary Shelley's, or that conventional to her age is a moot issue. For readers concerned
with Mary Shelley's feminist commitment or with the way gender destinctions are reflected
by early nineteenth-century novels, Elizabeth's lack of self-assertiveness and her
easy acquiescence in a traditional female role have generally posed unsettling questions.

Prussia and Austria would be the obvious surrounding context for Switzerland, but
two sentences later the reader is given pre-revolutionary France and England as natural
referents (and thus implicit allies), a sly but penetrating political thrust on Mary
Shelley's part. The defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo had occured in June 1815, a little
over a year before the novel was begun, and the "Holy Alliance" of autocracies had
through the Congress of Vienna reinstated itself in firm control of the continent
of Europe.

A heavy sea with large waves. Although they are still ice-bound, the sailors can hear
the sound of waves breaking in the distance and know that the ice surrounding them
will soon crack. The novel will return to this point, as at the very end of his narrative
Victor Frankenstein recounts the same phenomenon from his dangerously vulnerable position
on the ice in III:7:20 and note. See also III:7:24 and note.

This seemingly strange shift in Victor's autobiography, without parallel in the account
of his early education in the first edition, may be intended by Mary Shelley in her
emendations to prepare us for, and make a logical link to, Victor's mental state just
before he is rescued by Walton and his crew. In the last chapter of his narration
(III:7:5) he accounts himself under the special protection of guiding spirits who
guide his vengeance against the Creature.

Coming as it does at the end of this chapter on his formative influence, this strong
commitment to a guiding destiny testifies to a belief system through which Victor
filters his entire existence, thus in effect rewriting it. Where a reader might wish
to observe in Victor's behavior a normal adolescent lethargy or an understandable
lack of assurance about the future course of his preparation for adulthood, Victor
sees the hand of Providence.

With this phrase Mary Shelley insinuates a theme into her novel that will develop
exponentially over its course. We recall that Victor expressed "the greatest remorse"
for having kept Henry Clerval from his studies during his long illness (I:4:20): that
diction, for all its hyperbole, was utterly conventional. Now, Victor is bitten by
remorse as by a poisonous viper, and it will poison his system for the rest of his
existence. For the later course of this poison where it results in agony, for instance,
see the last sentence of III:5:8. This same poison infects the Creature as well, he
bitterly admits to Walton (III:WC:37). The contemporary definition of remorse accentuated
so painful a condition.

This may appear a surprising choice of diction on Walton's part. Johnson's Dictionary
defines the word pejoratively:

Disdainful; squeamish; delicate to a vice; insolently nice.

The Oxford English Dictionary somewhat refines the range of possible meanings:

1. That creates disgust; disagreeable, distasteful, unpleasant, wearisome. Obs.
2.
   -- a. That feels or is full of disgust; disgusted.
   -- b. Full of pride; disdainful; scornful. Obs.
   -- c. transf. Of things: 'Proud', magnificent.
3. Easily disgusted, squeamish, over-nice; difficult to please with regard to matters
of taste or propriety.

The connotation of Walton's usage indicates that he is using the word in the third
sense here, suggestive of a well-educated and highly refined sense of taste.

What may be most interesting about this sentence is what it says about Mary Shelley's
values. A woman who has been "tutored and refined by books" is still an uncommon being
in eighteenth-century culture, often referred to contemptuously as a "learned lady."
Here, in contrast, Margaret Saville is a paragon of judgment and the conduit through
which this entire history, with its multiple internal narratives, flows.

It is probably no accident that Victor employs diction that could also be used to
describe a massive jolt of electric current. His Creature will receive such a "fatal
impulse" at the beginning of the fourth chapter (I:4:1), when Victor "infuse[s] a
spark of being" into its flesh.

Victor uses the term with a wholly different emphasis from that given to it by Walton
in the previous paragraph. Walton's wish to "ameliorate his fate" refers to the despondency
to which he thinks Victor has been driven by hard, but as yet undiscriminated, circumstances,
a despondency that could be alleviated by time and compassion. Victor, on the other
hand, as his narrative will begin to underscore, has come to see himself as a destined
victim of these circumstances, one who can neither alter them nor their effect on
his own condition. The disparity in usage is actually a window into character.