Plot Summary of the Novel (Based on the 1818 Text)

Volume I

The English ship's captain Robert Walton, in a series of letters to his sister Margaret Saville in England, describes the initial stages of his nautical journey to the North Pole (I: L1). While sailing north of Archangel in Russia, Walton's ship becomes trapped in arctic ice. From across the frozen sea, the sailors spot a gigantic figure on a dog-sled crossing the ice (I: L4: 3), and later see a haggard, wild-eyed man who is pursuing him, stranded with his dogsled on an ice floe. They take him on board.

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1433

  • young man As the weight of circumstances and of tragedies accumulates it may be somewhat difficult
    to remember the actual chronology of the novel. Victor is yet only 24 years old.

    • 1432

  • you, my friend Not since Volume 1 (I:3:13, I:6:18 and note) have the narrative lines been broken
    to remind us of the circumstances in which this story is being told. As was the case
    in those instances Victor signals a new intensification in the circumstances of the
    plot, with Henry Clerval reentering the novel.

    • 1431

  • a year ago At this point in the year before Victor and Henry resided in London and were preparing
    to transfer their center of activity to Oxford. Elizabeth must be referring to the
    despondent period the summer earlier, following Victor's confrontation by the Creature
    beneath Mont Blanc.

    • 1430

  • Wretch! At this late point in the novel this vocative is literally true, and the Creature
    will acknowledge it so three paragraphs later. Still, we have to recognize that we
    have come full circle: Walton addresses the Creature with the appellation employed
    by Victor Frankenstein immediately after his creation (I:4:2 and note) and again upon
    reencountering him on the Mer-de-Glace of Mont Blanc (II:2:5 and note). Two sentences
    later he will reiterate Victor's linguistic leap into transcendental terminology,
    demonizing the Creature as a fiend. In his response the Creature picks up on the shift
    in signification, comparing himself both to Adam and to Satan.

    • 1429

  • the wretch By this time, we are so aware of how this kind of terminology distances and demonizes
    the Creature that Victor's resort to it is perhaps only to be expected.

    • 1428

  • a wish . . . across me In its context this is a striking revelation of Victor's deep, antisocial isolation,
    which contrasts ironically with the passionate need for community that drives the
    Creature and that has just been denied him, it would appear, forever.

    • 1427

  • the wind was contrary, and the stream of the river was too gentle In other words, the boat was encountering a north wind blowing against their further
    progress in that direction. By the time the Rhine reaches Cologne it has broadened
    considerably, abating the strong current it bears through the mountainous country
    further south.
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