1195

  • a singularly variegated landscape Although Mary Shelley depends for the description here principally on her own observations,
    Byron's representation of the Rhine landscape as a point in nature where one might
    observe a symbolic reconciliation of opposite powers in harmonious symmetry (see Childe
    Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto 3, stanzas 59-61) seems to touch her conception here. That
    representation, in any case, would not be far from her mind, since it was written
    in the summer of 1816 and, indeed, when the Shelleys returned to England they carried
    the manuscript of the poem with them.

    • 1194

  • I have visited the lakes of Lucerne and Uri Mary Shelley's History of a Six Weeks' Tour recounts her visit to Lucerne and Uri.

    • 1193

  • in justice, or even in possibility Questions of justice have entered this novel from various directions, spanning the
    Creature's plea for a mate (II:9:2, II:9:8) to the condemnation of Justine Moritz
    (I:7:1). What may be most interesting about Walton's invocation of the term is his
    implicit understanding of the notion of disinterested equity, a notion wholly absent
    from the closed circle of antagonism in which Victor and his Creature exist. For Mary
    Shelley to introduce such a concept this late in the novel might suggest an effort
    on her part to establish an ethical code by which readers can take the measure of
    the novel's characters and events.

    • 1192

  • Jura opposing its dark side The Jura massif runs to the northwest of Geneva and serves as a natural barrier to
    an armed adventure from neighboring France. This is clearly a reference to the French
    invasion of Switzerland in the spring of 1798, when, it must be said, the Jura wholly
    failed in this protective office. Still, why such a strong political sentiment should
    be intruded by Victor Frankenstein at this point is not readily explicable. Perhaps
    what the reader is intended to recognize is that Victor's distancing himself within
    a political context allows him to forget the last time all these features of the landscape
    were brought together by him in a single perspective, the night he first encountered
    his Creature outside Geneva (I:6:17).

    • 1191

  • the journal of Clerval Lacking the journal of Clerval, we will have to settle for that of Mary Shelley,
    who traversed this route in 1814 and published it in her History of a Six Weeks' Tour
    just before Frankenstein. At that time the point of departure for the Shelley party
    was Basel.

    Yet, that we lack Clerval's journal might in context seem strange. The entire novel
    is based on the presence of an overload of documentary information that includes the
    letters of Alphonse Frankenstein and Elizabeth Lavenza, the journal letter of Robert
    Walton, his representation of Victor's narrative (dutifully "corrected" by Victor),
    which in turn contains the Creature's narrative, which is, in part, attested to by
    the letters of Felix that the Creature promised to leave with Victor when he finished.
    If we lack this last piece of evidence, however, we do not lack its effect on the
    narrative, since Victor here calls attention to the nature and quality of Clerval's
    writing.

    • 1190

  • I will not The reader may have forgotten, but certainly Victor Frankenstein has not, that he
    deserted the ice floe on which Walton's crew had discovered him and boarded the sailing
    vessel only because its course lay to the north, the destination toward which his
    pursuit of the Creature was leading him (I:L4:8). Now that Walton's ship veers to
    the south, remaining aboard can no longer serve his purpose, which is as single-minded
    in its vengeance as ever.

    • 1189

  • it was he . . . nurse Mary Shelley's emphasis is delicate but marked. In his several months of illness
    and misery it appears that only late does Victor recognize that there are medical
    costs that had to be borne by someone. He has focussed critically on the quality of
    the care without inquiring who had accepted the expence on his behalf.

    • 1188

  • the lovely Isis The Upper Thames River is called the Isis as it flows through Oxford.

    • 1187

  • company was irksome to me Victor's rationalizations for his withdrawal from social interaction have an obvious
    logic to support them. Still, that this characteristic retreat within reasserts itself
    even where he should feel most diverted by his novel surroundings indicates a dangerous
    state of mental health.

    • 1186

  • the Irish Improbably, Victor has floated some hundreds of miles. Moreover, as we discover in
    the next chapter he is not the only one who has traversed the open seas southwest
    of the Orkneys to land on the northeast coast of Ireland. Although it has been suggested
    that including Ireland in the expansive geographical range of the novel may be Mary
    Shelley's means of honoring her mother, who served as a governess there, the strangeness
    of this repositioning of setting has never been adequately accounted for.

    From Victor's reference to "a line of high land" (III:3:26), we may suppose that Mary
    Shelley has in mind geological features like the Giant's Causeway, a line of huge
    islets, or the cliffs of Fair Head.

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