620

  • All was blasted

    The language seems intended to invoke the "blasted stump" (I:1:22 and note) that is
    left after lightning strikes the tree near Bellerive, a manifestation of the power
    of the "vital fluid," electricity, that can at once create and destroy.

    • 619

  • a lady With the arrival of this enigmatic stranger Mary Shelley essentially completes the
    cast of characters—which is to say, the balance of human and social elements—that
    compose her novel. That Safie is herself an outsider makes her curiously similar to
    the Creature who observes her entrance on the scene.

    • 618

  • aiguilles Literally needles: the term applies to the smaller pinnacles that rise in the periphery
    of Mont Blanc.

    • 617

  • a hell of intense tortures Again, the stress is on hell as a mental state that Victor bears within himself.
    As demonstrated earlier at I:4:5 (and note) and I:7:30 (and note), Victor's internalization
    of the pangs of hell-fire is a clear allusion to the misery of Milton's Satan in Paradise
    Lost, especially IV.66-75.

    • 616

  • A gentle light

    The moon, which appears from details that follow in the narrative to be in its full
    phase. It is so bright, in Victor's narrative of the night of the Creature's birth,
    that "it forced its way through the window-shutters" (I:4:3), allowing him sufficient
    light to discern the features of the Creature as he opened the bed curtains to discover
    Victor.

    • 615

  • again, with a lessened form That is, the moon has disappeared totally, then has just reappeared in its new phase:
    so, a period of two weeks has elapsed.

    • 614

  • disgust and affright The explicitly sensual terms with which the Creature characterizes Caroline Frankenstein,
    unknown to him the mother of his creator-father, recalls his reaction to the first
    sight of Safie (II:5:4 and note). Clearly, Safie is in his mind when the paragraph
    ends with the anticipated aversion of a beautiful woman to his form.

    • 613

  • the affections of a sensitive being This antiquated terminology bears pausing over. "Sensitive" in this context implies
    both "vitality, "human feeling," and an "independent will." The reciprocity of sensitive
    beings is the foundation of all social interchange; thus, the key to creating a society.

    • 612

  • a duty As he has before, Alphonse Frankenstein raises before Victor the notion of duty as
    a contractual obligation between individual and family or state (I:1:1, I:3:10).

    • 611

  • like Adam Although the Creature here alludes to Adam's instruction by Raphael, which occupies
    the central third of Milton's epic, the imprecation on his creator that follows in
    the next paragraph bears comparison with the fallen Adam's indictment of God and lament
    that he was ever born (X.720ff). Like Adam, although physically he does not bear the
    imprint of his Creator, the Creature is indissolubly bound to Victor Frankenstein,
    as is indicated by his frequent unconscious doublings in language or gesture.
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