1118

  • a feverish joy This oxymoronic construction calls attention to itself in ominous ways. It at once
    reminds the literate reader of the "fearful joy" that the youths momentarily "snatch"
    on their school playing field in Thomas Gray's "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton
    College" (line 40) and recalls the anxiety-ridden states of fever that have furnished
    a recurrent counterpoint to Victor's experiences with the Creature (see I:3:14, I:4:17).

    • 1117

  • a feverish fire still glimmers in his eyes Victor has been described as feverish since his collapse following the death of Clerval
    (III:4:11). The symptoms point to tuberculosis, known in the early nineteenth century
    as consumption because the body wasted away under the advance of the disease. Such
    a disease would be correlative to, and even emblematic of, Victor's mental condition.

    • 1116

  • fever With this characteristic reversion to physical collapse we are reminded of how precarious
    has been Victor's physical and mental stability since his obsessive researches at
    Ingolstadt (see I:4:17). Only a few months before his marriage he had been so ill
    that a long period of convalescence was necessary to restore him to a state in which
    he could withstand his trial in Ireland (see III:4:11 and III:4:42).

    • 1115

  • felt . . . other sufferings. The context, as earlier in the chapter (III:3:7), here once again brings to mind
    the circumstances of Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," lines 119ff., which
    is associated in the novel both with a transgressive voyaging (see I:L2:6 and note)
    and with a fear of retribution for tampering recklessly with life (I:4:7).

    • 1114

  • I seek not a fellow-feeling in my misery We notice that the Creature closely follows the course of linguistic renunciation
    already emphasized in the discourse of Victor Frankenstein. Unable to extricate himself
    from the reality of his bondage with Victor, his condition is unalterable. It, too,
    can lead only to death.

    • 1113

  • feelings of affection One senses here a last-ditch recapitulation of earlier statements by the Creature,
    of a type that originally convinced Victor to create him a mate: see, for example,
    II:2:13 and II:9:14.

    • 1112

  • the favourite plan of your parents. This seems a slight distortion of the record. The "plan" was that of Victor's mother,
    which on her deathbed she willed to her husband and son (I:2:2).

    • 1111

  • I was delighted . . . family

    The phrasing here makes Victor sound cavalier and shallow, no longer responsive to
    the weight of the universe he had felt after his encounter on Mont Blanc (II:9:19).
    His aim seems less to complete a difficult assignment than to procrastinate as long
    as possible. Whatever one might argue in extenuation of his motives, it seems clear
    in this passage that he gives no thought whatsoever to the Creature's well-being.
    Perhaps it was with some sense of mitigating these unflattering character traits that
    in 1831 Mary Shelley revised this passage to suggest a greater degree of responsibility
    on Victor's part.

    • 1110

  • the amiable Falkland Sir Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland, was one of the principal Cavaliers in the
    service of Charles I. He died at the Battle of Newbury on 20 September 1643. His name
    and exalted notion of honor were, it would appear, used by William Godwin as models
    for the hero-villain Count Ferdinando Falkland of The Adventures of Caleb Williams.
    Today Falkland's fame is sustained by his serving as one of the subjects of Ben Jonson's
    enduring tribute "To the Immortal Memory and Friendship of That Nobel Pair Sir Lucius
    Cary and Sir H. Morison," one of the first true odes in the English tradition.

    The somewhat surprising emphasis on royalist values in this paragraph is suggestive
    of a historical politics far removed from that elsewhere insinuated into Frankenstein
    (see, for instance, II:5:16) or shared by Mary Shelley with her father and Percy.
    These references are perhaps best explained within the context of the novel William
    Godwin published about a month before Frankenstein appeared, Mandeville: A Tale of
    the Seventeenth Century in England. The protagonist of that novel is an ultra-Royalist
    who, as his cause deteriorates, retreats further and further into morbid self-obsession.
    The emotional dynamics of Mandeville, if not the portraiture itself, are consonant
    with the psychological makeup of Victor Frankenstein.

    • 1109

  • Fairy-land This is the mature figure who at the age of nine wrote a fairy tale that captivated
    his friends (I:1:11). Clerval responds in part to the many legendary associations
    of the Rhine—from the siren-like Lorelei to the Rhine-maidens with their trove of
    gold—in German folklore.
    • Subscribe to