The same noun is employed by Alphonse Frankenstein in the previous chapter (I:6:37).
The word conveys a sense of obligation and therefore of class difference. Again and
again it is emphasized that Justine has been raised above her rank in life by the
active interest of the Frankenstein household in her welfare. But has she really altered
her condition? Not just the family but the whole of Geneva society condescend to her
as having less than full rights to her supposedly respectable condition. The ease
with which her claims to equity are abrogated implicitly places her on a par with
Victor's Creature, named a wretch and denied the claim of human sympathy.

Mary Shelley calls it "the dark frowning Jura" in a letter of 1 June 1816 quoted in
The History of a Six Weeks' Tour.

Victor suddenly shows a political consciousness that has not been active up to this
point. The context suggests that the enclosed world of the domestic affections, governed
by a feminine sensibility, is threatened—and through history actually destroyed—by
the masculinist drive for power. This is a sentiment with which both her father William
Godwin and her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley would have agreed. In the shadow of the
Napoleonic Wars and the reinstitution of reactionary monarchies across Europe, it
is a sentiment not in accord with the prevailing state of political opinion in England.

It could be argued that Victor simply serves momentarily as mouthpiece for the author's
pointedly liberal views to surface. What would complicate that supposition is the
fact that this series of political failures is identical with those the Creature derives
from the oral reading of Volney's Ruins of Empire by Felix De Lacey (see II:5:14).
If we focus on that identity retrospectively, we are suddenly confronted with the
amazing fact that Victor, whether he registered it or not, will actually learn something
concrete from the Creature's narration in the second volume of the novel.

Walton is more specific later in I:L4:19, recalling to Victor that the "ice had not
broken until near midnight," that is, some seven hours after the ground sea was heard.

Walton's innocent description of the Creature names him in relation to a human community.
The ship's lieutenant in describing the being to Victor will strengthen this denomination
later in Walton's letter (I:L4:13), twice referring to him as a "man," whereupon Victor
automatically renames him as "daemon."

Bellerive (which connotes "beautiful shore") is a suburb of Geneva, situated north
of the city on the western shore of the lake as it narrows towards its end and thus
affording a picturesque view of Geneva and the mountains beyond it. That the Frankenstein
family possesses a country house testifies to their comparative wealth and social
standing in the community, an issue that will be of some moment to the trial recounted
in I:7:1. After its painful conclusion the family will seek tranquillity in a return
to the comfortable setting of this country house (II:1:5).

Bellerive is where the fifteen-year-old Victor witnessed the violent thunderstorm
(I:1:22) that started his obsession with the powers of electricity: thus, it is particularly
appropriate that the "most violent storm" occurs in this area.

The repetition of the adjective "benevolent" three times in as many paragraphs indicates
the stress Mary Shelley places on this as a fundamental attribute of human virtue.
However it may be stressed in Victor's memory, the frequency with which such benevolence
is actually encountered as a motivating force will be tested when the Creature flees
Victor's apartment and attempts to make his way in the world.

Victor's stress on the term marks it as of particular importance to him and indicates
that it is also of concern to the novel. With some pathos, Victor will begin the second
volume by recalling that he had himself "begun life with benevolent intentions" (II:1:1).
At this point we cannot know how far from disinterested benevolence Victor has strayed.
In retrospect, however, the novel's readers can easily comprehend why fervent emotions
would be generated in him by a return to civilized human standards and ethical conduct.

As Walton's first letter opens with an expression of the opposed perspectives of men
and women (I:L1:1 and note), so this initial paragraph of the first chapter accentuates
the concern of the patriarchy with replicating itself. Alphonse Frankenstein's sense
of public purpose is to reproduce himself for the good of the state. By suppressing
the role of the female in this process, he paradoxically voices what will become his
son's obsession with creating a new man without the intervention of woman. With that
creation in mind, however, it does not require of the reader an undue stretching of
the sense to regard the distinctive tone of this language, so abstracted and clinical,
as being more characteristic of Victor than of his father.