1363
In the eighteenth century the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, after St. Peter's in Rome
the largest structure in the world, dominated the London cityscape.
1362
his case for fear of not being believed, worries about how he can convey his deposition
so as to produce conviction. Yet, once again, the language reminds us that we are
in the midst of a narrative whose truth is totally dependant on the veracity of the
narrator. Victor likewise makes much of its internal consistency to Walton as he begins
the narration (I:L4:30). What this detail adds is the realization that Victor's is
truly what Nathaniel Hawthorne termed a "twice-told tale," having, with the exception
of its final chapter, been already rehearsed in the judge's chamber. The reiteration
of such a tale of fatally transgressed boundaries recalls the context provided by
the same sort of obsessive repetition in Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner."
1361
Gothic atmosphere in which to wrap the suspense of this long-awaited evening. But
the storm functions more specifically as a leitmotif associated with the sublime power
of nature, of forces beyond human control, and of the Creature. There actually are
only two such Gothic storms in Frankenstein. The first was also set in the environs
of Lake Geneva and occured as Victor, returning from Ingolstadt, sought out the scene
of his brother William's death at Plainpalais. There in a brilliant flash of lightning
he encountered the form of his Creature for the first time since the night of its
creation. That scene in the sixth chapter in the first volume (I:6:20) thus operates
as a symmetrical counterpart to this other storm of the sixth chapter of the third
volume, anticipating the reemergence of the Creature into Victor's domestic idyll.
1360
Coming up the Thames, these late eighteenth-century travellers remark the objects
that rise above the cityscape, which in general would have otherwise been limited
to perhaps five or six storeys in height. In these circumstances the steeples of the
London churches would have called attention to themselves, as they include many architectural
masterpieces.
1359
A coastal city in Fife, St. Andrew's is the site of the oldest university in Scotland,
founded in 1411. However impatient Victor represents himself, he and Henry Clerval
go well out of their way to visit medieval sites on their way to Perth.
1358
reduced to an irrational state he naturally falls back on his native French. There
is an undercurrent of class revealed in the indication that only Mr. Kirwin among
the Irish attendants or villagers is sufficiently educated to understand French.
1357
sharpened by Victor into a certainty. The dead become the enablers of his action and
he sees himself increasingly as acting upon their behalf. Again, Mary Shelley's psychological
portrait here is subtly telling: a person who has given up all sense of individual
will has surrendered the central principal of vitality and may, indeed, be considered
to have become an agent of death.
1356
Although less obviously allusive to Milton's characterization of Satan in Paradise
Lost than the earlier reference (III:Walton:6 and note; see also I:L4:22), the verbal
repetition serves to underscore with some finality the parallel with the fallen archangel.
1355
of destruction. Yet, the forceful egotism by which Victor empowers himself, justifying
his actions as divinely decreed, also suggests what today we would call a megalomania.
1354
on his behalf. By this point he has convinced himself that he is under their protection.
This is a further example of how in the last pages of his narration Victor moves further
and further beyond the boundaries of a normative rationality.