992

  • the anguish of recognition

    The phrase is suggestive of something beyond the mere identification of the body.
    Victor surely recognizes his responsibility for this death. Perhaps the extremity
    of his phrase is also intended to accentuate the point at which he finds himself looking,
    as it were, into a mirror, confronting a second self who has been murdered by a being
    who is likewise an extension of himself. The shock, as his reaction strongly testifies,
    is psychologically as well as physically convulsive.

    • 991

  • An eye so full of lofty design Admittedly, the reader will not wish to take such a phrase out of its context, nor
    wholly discount how impressed Walton himself is by his friend's intervention on his
    behalf. Yet at the same time the ambivalence in diction that has surrounded the functioning
    of eloquence since Walton resumed the narration (III:Walton:1, III:Walton:6 and note,
    III:Walton:12 and note) calls attention to this further instance of the double-entendre.
    "Design" may be a synonym for "purpose," the word Walton stresses just below, at the
    end of this day's entry; but it may also bear a sense of calculated histronics. The
    linguistic ambivalence allows Walton and his readers, should they wish, to derive
    opposite conclusions from the same evidence.

    • 990

  • I am quite alone This image of existential solitude is the final allusion of the many in this novel
    to Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, "Alone, alone, all, all alone" (line 232).

    • 989

  • almost as imposing and interesting as truth For a person of Walton's scientific pretensions, this is a remarkable phrase. As
    with other statements in these paragraphs, it bears a poised ambiguity in its significance,
    both justifying the super-natural as a realm of imaginative vision and casting doubt
    on its actual efficacy. Truth is, after all, here an unmodifiable standard by which
    all visionary comparisons are to be judged.

    • 988

  • I almost felt . . . being The "almost" by which Victor separates himself from moral responsibility contrasts
    sharply with the strength of his verb emphasizing sheer brutality. This language is
    commensurate with the burst of passionate violence in which he tore to pieces the
    second being on whom he had labored (III:3:4).

    • 987

  • I allowed . . . moment

    The oddly cavalier attitude toward grave matters pronounced just before in Victor's
    interview with his father (III:1:8) appears to deepen here.

    • 986

  • my agony was still superior to thine The Creature's language recalls the diction of Victor Frankenstein's curse on him
    in the cemetery of Geneva where the Frankenstein family was interred (III:7:5), to
    which he responded with a "loud and fiendish laugh." This retrospective perhaps explicates
    that laugh; at the very least, it indicates that the agony Victor had wished upon
    him then was already the abiding condition of his existence.

    • 985

  • Again do I vow vengeance The sudden time shift into the present tense makes us realize how isolated from reality
    is Victor's conception of the universe. But, likewise, the religious overtones of
    this reiterated "vow," combined with Victor's sense that he is an instrument of divine
    retribution, must alert us to the irony by which the two beings, linked in a closed
    circle of revenge, are anything but redemptive in their endeavors.

    • 984

  • the affections In these late frames Victor's ramblings tend to touch on themes represented early
    in the novel and subsequently rather shunted to the side by the pressure of events.
    Thus, Victor's underscoring of the domestic affections as the arena for human life's
    most cherished actions reflects the nostalgic view of his childhood expressed in his
    first chapter (I:1:9, I:1:11) and strongly reinforced by his bitter recriminations
    over his withdrawal from this arena at Ingolstadt (I:3:12 and note). That the novel's
    actual focus is rather the opposite has been remarked more than once by critics. Certainly,
    the ultimate value of what on the surface appear to be peaceful domestic affections
    is thrown into question by the behavior of the cottagers to the Creature in Volume
    2 (II:7:36) or the scapegoating of Justine conducted by the pious burghers of Geneva
    in Volume 1 (I:7:13).

    • 983

  • addressed me in French For the third time in these Irish chapters (see III:3:29 and III:4:11) Mary Shelley
    emphasizes a multiple perspective associated with shifts in language. To some extent,
    she must be reinforcing our awareness of an essential affinity between Victor Frankenstein
    and Mr. Kirwin in matters of class and education. Yet, even as she evokes common bonds,
    she subtly reminds us of the differences that are lost in translation or that, on
    a larger scale, represent features by which we distinguish ourselves from others.
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