1002

  • ascertain my fate From the retrospect of later chapters in the novel this seemingly innocuous phrase
    might be seen as constituting something of a floodwater for what will become an increasingly
    powerful, inescapable driving force in Victor's comprehension of the world. At the
    conceptual core of this notion of destiny one finds combined, as here, a sense of
    his own incapacity to act independently, a passivity before what he construes as superior
    power, and an abnegation of responsibility for the actions of himself or others.

    • 1001

  • ardently prayed The language of ardor, earlier associated with the scientific pursuits of both Walton
    (I:L1:2, I:L3:1) and Victor Frankenstein (I:3:2, I:4:3)—where in the latter case it
    is tinged with something approaching the eroticism only fully expressed after the
    death of Elizabeth (III:6:9)—is here transferred into the arena of hatred. In Victor
    this hatred will constitute a passion as intense and single-minded as erotic infatuation.

    • 1000

  • Embraced her with ardour After the numerous uses of this word to express a passion deflected upon mental objects
    and self-destructive withdrawal from community (see II:1:6 and its omnibus note),
    it is almost shocking to have it at last, and ironically, function within its normative
    connotations: that is to say, to represent passionate love.

    • 999

  • ardent desire The resonaces of this phrase for both Victor (see I:2:7), his Creature (see II:5:7
    and III:Walton:43), Walton (I:L3:1), and even the beneficent Mr. Kirwin (III:4:20)
    are another indication of how carefully Mary Shelley, in this final chapter of Victor's
    narration, is engaged in marking thematic unities across the various levels of her
    fictional panorama. "Ardent desire," though if untempered it can lead to a solipsistic
    irresponsibilty, is nonetheless an essential human principle. Its abrogation here,
    which will be reinforced by Victor's repetition of this disclaimer in his last moments
    (see III:Walton:28), indicates how whole is Victor's reversal from the student who
    undertook his career at Ingolstadt because he so "ardently desired the acquisition
    of knowledge" (I:2:7).

    • 998

  • They were for ever ardent and craving In the connotations of Mary Shelley's time, this phrase, in combination with the
    "impotent passions" described two sentences earlier, would seem to suggest that the
    Creature has suffered deeply during his existence from unconsummated sexual desire.
    Ironically, his desire for intercourse has been pure and unsublimated, whereas that
    of Walton and Frankenstein has been strongly channeled away from human interaction
    and into their respective projects (see II:9:9 and note).

    • 997

  • like the archangel

    The network of subtle allusiveness that has quietly identified Victor Frankenstein
    with Milton's Satan in Paradise Lost here rises to the surface of the text. Victor
    refers specifically to the climax of Satan's soliloquy on Mount Niphates:

    Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell;
    And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep
    Still threatening to devour me opens wide,
    To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heaven.
    (IV.75-79)

    • 996

  • the apple had already been eaten Victor here construes himself in terms of the fallen Adam, by his transgressive actions
    forever barred from Paradise. The angel whose "arm [is] bared" is the figure Blake
    called "the Covering Cherub," assigned to make certain that no return was possible:
    it is to be assumed that by this figure Victor identifies his Creature as an instrument
    of divine destiny.

    See also Milton's description of this banishment in Paradise Lost, XII.632-44.

    • 995

  • appearance of the simplest truth The emphasis on Victor's theatricality in the previous paragraph has insinuated the
    question of exactly where the truth may lie in Victor's account. Although Walton concentrates
    on the possibility that Victor's tale could be a complete fabrication, for the reader
    convinced of the Creature's existence this language also underscores the larger issue
    of the relativity of any individual's perception of the truth. The Creature's take
    on this story, as Walton will himself learn, is rather different from Victor's.

    • 994

  • I thought of Switzerland . . . appalling landscape This description, though clearly conditioned by the rugged and mountainous islands
    to which Victor has retreated, is even more appropriate to the realm of transgressive
    power in which his scientific obsessions are centered. Whenever the sublime erupts
    in Frankenstein, the reader may expect its avatar, Victor's Creature, to make an appearance
    as well.

    • 993

  • an apoplectic fit

    The OED defines apoplexy:

    A malady, very sudden in its attack, which arrests more or less completely the powers
    of sense and motion; it is usually caused by an effusion of blood or serum in the
    brain, and preceded by giddiness, partial loss of muscular power, etc.

    In modern parlance, this would be termed a cerebral hemorrhage. It is not certain
    that the term was applied so specifically in Mary Shelley's day.

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