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  • A ghastly grin This is only the second occasion in which the Creature is perceived smiling (the
    first is in I:4:3), and in each case Victor interprets an expression of pleasure and
    anticipation as alien, even diabolical.

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  • I, the native of a genial and sunny climate The atmosphere of the third volume of the novel, with the exception of the honeymoon
    excursion along Lake Geneva, has been so far from genial that the reader is enjoined
    at this point to recall the original balancing of the novel, in which the civilized
    bourgeois world of the Frankenstein household represents the beautiful against the
    sublime of Mont Blanc and the Creature whom Victor encounters there in the second
    volume (II:2:5).

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  • to curse; to execrate; to doom to destruction

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  • to dedicate; to consecrate; to appropriate

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  • Noble of mind; magnanimous; open of heart.

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  • Not of mean birth; of good extraction.

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  • generous and self-devoted being In a novel in which oxymorons have increasingly come to represent implacable ambivalences,
    this summary of Victor Frankenstein stands out as an epitome. If readers should wonder
    whether it is really possible so to overlay what appear to be opposite constructions,
    a scrupulous respect for earlier connotations of the terms will sharpen the meaning
    if not wholly dispel its ambiguities. Dr. Johnson's Dictionary (1755) lists these
    meanings for "generous":
    • Not of mean birth; of good extraction.
    • Noble of mind; magnanimous; open of heart.
    • Liberal; munificent.
    • Strong; vigorous.

    It is clear that the third, which is the customary modern sense of the word, would
    be generally inappropriate to the figure that Victor Frankenstein has cut in this
    novel, but either of the other three meanings would in one phase or another of his
    existence adequately characterize him. The main thrust of the Creature's meaning is
    probably the second. Even here, however, some readers might wish to cavil, asking
    whether, given Frankenstein's ambitions and good intentions but customary self-enclosure,
    it would be possible to retain a nobility of mind without being greatly magnanimous
    or open-hearted.

    With "self-devoted," the range of possibility is even greater and likewise is further
    from a modern, loose conception of the term as meaning "devoted to one's self." The
    three definitions of "to devote" in Johnson's Dictionary are:

    • to dedicate; to consecrate; to appropriate
    • to addict; to give up to ill
    • to curse; to execrate; to doom to destruction

    All of these definitions have a bearing on Victor Frankenstein's character, even
    simultaneously so, but in the context of the Creature's expression of "wildest rage,"
    an attribute mirrored between him and his creator, the last of the definitions would
    seem to bear a particular relevance.

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