Frankenstein

1
Frankenstein

• Chapters 21-24

2
Chapter 21

• Foreshadowing
• Monster kills Clerval
• Indicates his knowledge and awareness of Victors
  life
• Foreshadows the violence he will continue

3
Chapter 21

• Victors Sickness
• Deterioration psychologically induced
• Escape the horridness of his reality
• The human frame could no longer support the
  agonies that I endured, and I was carried out of
  the room in strong convulsions (167).

4
Chapter 22

• Isolation and Despair
• I am the assassin of those most innocent
  victims they died by my machinations. A
  thousand times would I have shed my own blood,
  drop by drop, to have saved their lives but I
  could not, my father, indeed I could not
  sacrifice the whole human race (176).
• Blames himself and realizes what he created

5
Chapter 22

• Victor and Elizabeth
• This letter revived in my memory what I had
  before forgotten, the threat of the fiend- I
  will be with you on your wedding-night!...On that
  night he had determined to consummate his crimes
  by my death (179).
• Did he forget?
• Foreshadows the evil that is to come
• Wants to bring father and Elizabeth happiness
• Thinks he will endure the consequences

6
Chapter 22

• Victors mental and physical state
• The tranquility which I now enjoyed did not
  endure. Memory brought madness with it, and when
  I thought of what had passed, a real insanity
  possessed me sometimes I was furious and burnt
  with rage, sometimes low and despondent. I
  neither spoke not looked at anyone, but sat
  motionless, bewildered by the multitude of
  miseries that overcame me (180).
• Monster takes over his being
• No future of happiness
• Regrets his decision?

7
Chapter 22

• Foreshadowing
• If for one instant I had thought what might be
  the hellish intention of my fiendish adversary, I
  would rather have banished myself forever from my
  native country and wandered a friendless outcast
  over the earth than have consented to this
  miserable marriage (181)
• Mistake in thinking it is his doom and death that
  awaits
• He does not heed the warning of the monster

8
Chapter 23

• Gothic Setting
• The wind, which had fallen in the south, now
  rose with great violence in the west. The moon
  had reached her summit in the heavens and was
  beginning to descend the clouds swept across it
  swifter than the flight of the vulture and dimmed
  her rays, while the lake reflected the scene of
  the busy heavens, rendered still busier by the
  restless waves that were beginning to rise.
  Suddenly a heavy storm of rain descended (185).
• Foreshadows what is to come
• Restlessness parallels Victors feelings

9
Chapter 23

• Death of Elizabeth
• She was there, lifeless and inanimate, thrown
  across the bed, her head hanging down and her
  pale and distorted features half covered by her
  hair. Everywhere I turn I see the same figure-
  her bloodless arms and relaxed form flung by the
  murderer on its bridal bier. Could I behold this
  and live? (186).
• Irony- it wasnt him
• Fitting because he denies the monster a companion

10
Chapter 23

• Victors Loss
• All close to Victor are dead at the hands of his
  creation
• He, like the monster, has no one left
• No wife, family, friends, faith in science

11
Chapter 23

• Victors Transformation
• He puts all focus on revenge
• Reminiscent of the monster
• A fiend had snatched from me every hope of
  future happiness no creature had ever been so
  miserable as I was so frightful an event is
  single in the history of man (188).

12
Chapter 23

• Victor's Transformation
• As the memory of past misfortunes pressed upon
  me, I began to reflect on their cause- the
  monster whom I created, the miserable demon whom
  I had sent abroad into the world for my
  destruction. I was possessed with maddening rage
  when I thought of him, and desired and ardently
  prayed that I might have him within my grasp to
  wreak a great and signal revenge on his cursed
  head (189).

13
Chapter 24

• Victors quest parallels the Monsters
• The deep grief which this scene had at first
  excited quickly gave way to rage and despair.
  They were dead, and I lived their murderer also
  lived, ad to destroy him I must drag out my weary
  existenceI swear and by thee, O night, and the
  spirits that preside over thee, to pursue the
  demon who caused this misery, until he or I shall
  perish in mortal conflict (193).
• He, like the monster, is alone and seeks
  vengeance
• He has become what the monster became

14
Chapter 24

• you live, and my power is complete. Follow
  me I seek the everlasting ices of the north,
  where you will feel the misery of cold and frost,
  to which I am impassive.Come on, my enemy we
  have yet to wrestle for our lives, but many hard
  and miserable hours must you endure until that
  period shall arrive (195).
• Wants Victor to search as he did
• Wants to come face to face

15
Chapter 24

• Victors request of Walton
• If I do, swear to me, Walton, that he shall not
  escape, that you will seek and satisfy my
  vengeance in his death. And I do dare to ask of
  you to undertake my pilgrimageNoIf he should
  appear, if the ministers of vengeance should
  conduct him to you, swear that he shall not
  live- (199).
• Obsessive need to end the monsters existence
• Victor has become dehumanized
• Has moved away from society and his sanity

16
Chapter 24

• Victors Transformation
• From my infancy I was imbued with high hopes and
  a lofty ambition but how am I sunk!
• If I were engaged in any high undertaking or
  design, fraught with extensive utility to my
  fellow creatures, then could I live to fulfil it,
  But such is not my destiny I must pursue and
  destroy the being to whom I gave existence then
  my lot on earth will be fulfilled and I may die
  (202)
• His goal in life
• Loss of humanity ironic- caused by high hopes
  and lofty ambition

17
Chapter 24

• Monster as Human
• Do you think that I was then dead to agony and
  remorsehe suffered not in the consummation of
  the deed. Oh! Not the ten-thousandth portion of
  the anguish that was mine during the lingering
  detail of its execution. A frightful selfishness
  hurried me on, while my heart was poisoned with
  remorse. Think you that he groans of Clerval
  were music to my ears? My heart was fashioned to
  be susceptible of love and sympathy, and when
  wretched by misery to vice, and hatred, it did
  not endure the violence of the charge without
  torture such as you cannot even imagine

18
Chapter 24

• I had cast off al feeling, subdued all anguish,
  to riot in the excess of my despair. Evil
  thenceforth became my good. Urged thus far, I
  had no choice but to adapt nature to an element
  which I had willingly chosen. The completion of
  my demonical design became an insatiable passion.
  And now it is ended there is my last victim
  (210).

19
Chapter 24

• Conclusion
• Victor sees himself as tragic victim of fate
• Too self-centered to help or understand his
  creation
• Monster sees himself as a martyr
• He never receives a definition before he leaves
  to die
• As the tragic hero
• Is he Adam or Satan