The diction here is deliberately resonant with the conventions of a highly artificial
poetry. The "fair enemy" is the lady to whom these seductive verses would be addressed,
an "enemy" in the sense that she resists their appeal to abandon herself to the sensuousness
they invite.

Walton understandably credits Victor's condition to severe exposure; but Victor tends
to react with extreme stress to the Creature's presence and more than once falls into
a catatonic state: e.g., after the Creature's original escape (I:4:3), after the destruction
of the second creature (III:3:24), and after the death of Clerval (III:4:10). This
appears to be a psychosomatic corollary to his constitutional introversion.

Victor is originally described by Walton as having a powerful feeling for nature (I:L4:28),
which is certainly not the case here; nor is it, indeed, at many crucial points in
his narrative. Although in this novel turning away from nature may be indicative of
a moral lapse, it is true that in the present instance Victor is circumventing nature
in his creation of another sentient being. Thus, it might be said that his insensitivity
to the natural is perfectly in keeping with his commitment to a creative act independent
of its limitations.

This strange intensity of gaze seems to combine the fixated obsessiveness in which
Victor has passed the previous two years with an ominous foreshadowing of the destiny
that he will come to feel has driven him to his destruction.

Victor's account of his life, we should recall, begins with the pedigree of the male
Frankensteins in the public life of the state (I:1:1). In his youth he was clearly
inculcated with his obligation to follow in this family tradition. The issue bears
as well for Walton's sense of purpose on his expedition (I:L1:2).

An exotic Johnson, in his 1755 Dictionary, defines simply as "A foreign plant." In
modern parlance it would designate a tropical, or non-hardy, botanical specimen. As
the succeeding sentences suggest, Caroline Frankenstein's fragile health, which will
lead to her early death, justifies such care. Today's reader is likely to find such
language offensive since intrinsically patronizing, but it was a common occurence
in the fiction, and the society, of Mary Shelley's day and would have drawn no particular
attention to itself. Yet, since gender roles are of continuing significance in the
development of the novel, this early emphasis on the traditional frailty of the female
physique is noteworthy.

We will learn the reason for this rhetorical heightening through the vocative case
as we move into the next chapter. This is the last serene moment that Victor will
experience in his entire existence, but the address to Clerval in the past tense immediately
shadows its expression of joy. In retrospect, the reader may consider Victor's happiness
during this year as purchased by a willful blindness to the potential consequences
of his actions.

This point is reemphasized two paragraphs on. Given the events subsequent to this
chapter, one should stress the significance of this statement. Justine Moritz has
been so fond of Victor's mother Caroline that she imitates her tones and gestures
and to Elizabeth seems like her embodiment. That Victor can remain silent at her persecution
will thus be a signal moral failing.

Ernest is at this juncture in his seventeenth year, the same age that Victor was when
he left his home to study in Ingolstadt. Although a young man of simple decency, as
the subsequent conversation will indicate, he is lacking both the sophistication and
the probing intellect of his older brother.

On March 18th of the year before Elizabeth noted that Ernest was "now nearly sixteen"
(I:5:1). At the time of William's death a year and two months later, presumably he
is seventeen.