It is clear, to invoke the customary alternatives, that to Victor at this point "dead"
would be far preferable to "alive." The ugliness of the morality behind his ruminations
here seems not to occur to him.

Victor's bitterness over the law may reflect Godwin's teachings about its arbitrary
nature and conformist tendencies, as well as Percy Bysshe Shelley's own legal problems
with his father during Mary's first years living with him. We see similar sentiments
in Elizabeth's aversion to the law as a profession for Ernest, which is expressed
in a passage in the first edition (I:5:2 and note).

This word, which as a noun entered the novel with Walton rhapsodizing over his passion
for discovery (I:L4:20), is now picked up by Victor as if deliberately to echo and
admonish the mariner. It will toll repetitively—and resonantly—through the remainder
of this chapter. It seems clear that Mary Shelley, capitalizing on her strategy in
1818, is here emphasizing the word in all its ambiguity. The complex of associations
in its definition can be tracked here.