Although it may be a relatively small point, nonetheless it is worth observing how
differently the underlying patriarchal structure operates in the De Lacey household
from that to be discerned among the Frankensteins. At the same time, the mutual love
of the De Lacey family, with its emphasis on the sufficiency of the domestic affections,
repeats motifs from the early chapters of Victor's narration (see, for instance, I:3:12
and note).

The Creature insists upon his full humanity, also upon his fellow-feeling as a human
being.

See Paradise Lost, IV.358-92 and IV.505-35, for the psychological effects felt by
Satan as a voyeur surreptitiously watching Adam and Eve in Paradise.

If the scene were less highly charged emotionally, this repeated challenge would bear
comic undertones. That Mary Shelley would run the risk of so undermining the solemn
tone of this exchange must indicate how important it was in her mind to exhibit Victor
falling back upon a conventional posture of masculinist belligerence.

The Creature means that the story of Felix's efforts on behalf of Safie's father and
the ruination suffered by the De Laceys as a result have taught him how to manipulate
the judicial system. Thus, his framing of Justine Moritz is deliberate. There is a
further sense in which he has also framed the magistrate Alphonse Frankenstein to
become complicitous in a grave injustice, but that solid upright citizen is never
aware of it.

A particularly brutal aspect of the "sanguinary laws of man" that the Creature did
not learn from Felix but has discovered on his own is how to victimize women. In the
1831 text (II:16:35) Mary Shelley stresses that Justine is framed because she represents
the type of Safie who fled in fear from his presence. In the revised text, then, the
planting of the picture is a symbolic form of rape.

Livorno, in Italian. Leghorn was the major port of Tuscany, with a large and thriving
English community of traders; hence the anglicized name. It would be a logical refuge
for someone looking to book passage to the eastern Mediterranean.

This is the major departure from the 1818 text, indicative of Mary Shelley's wish
to keep her novel concentrated not on Victor's family relations, but, instead, on
the sense of abject isolation he bears in his psyche. Most critics who have compared
the texts prefer the appropriateness of this extensive shift of focus.

These works are written, respectively, in Renaissance English, classical Latin, and
modern German. Fortunately for the Creature, they have all been translated into French,
which is of course the language the Creature has acquired through the De Laceys.

Although the tonality is subtle, the Creature's education along with Safie seems to
have a bonding effect, increasing his original attachment to her. In two months' time
the linguistic disadvantage that is a shared mark of their alienation is assuaged,
preparing them simultaneously for what should be a full social integration.

That is, the language spoken is German, not the French used by the De Laceys and the
Creature. This relapse appears to bear a symbolic connotation, as the Creature, who
had seen his efforts to acquire language as the key to his being accepted within human
society, is suddenly plunged once again into linguistic incomprehension.