Chapter I
In this chapter immediately following the death of Justine, Victor is “seized by remorse and the sense of guilt,” and delivers what can almost be considered a monologue about the regret and responsibility he feels. The fact that he is for the first time really able to accept the role he has played in this disaster is poignant, as it emphasises to Walton and to readers that we cannot escape the consequences of ill-conceived actions.
Victor begins to isolate himself even more from his family and friends, through reasoning that “solitude was [his] only consolation.” His father, along with Elizabeth (who are both unaware of Victor’s culpability), mistake his detachment for grief over the death of Justine. Thus, their advice to try to cheer him up was “totally inapplicable” to Victor’s case.
Indeed, Victor is made to feel worse when Elizabeth reflects that the inequity of Justine’s case means that men now appear to her as “monsters, thirsting for each other’s blood.” The irony of her comment cannot go unnoticed, as in labelling those behind Justine’s death as monsters, Elizabeth is unknowingly (yet in many ways correctly!) likening Victor to a monster.
Overcome by liability, and with Elizabeth’s reflections worsening his feelings, Victor seeks out nature as his solace. Shelley intimates that Victor experiences suicidal thoughts as he was “tempted to plunge into the silent lake, that the waters might close over [him] and [his] calamities forever.”
The idea of the sublime so frequently used throughout Frankenstein is epitomised in this chapter as Victor made his way to the valley of Chamonix. Describing the “immense mountains... sound of the river raging and the dashing of waterfalls,” Victor paints a vivid image of the incredible power of nature. The reader is inclined to feel that in this instant, Victor becomes more aware than ever of his own fallibility. This serves to humble him, as he is finally able to reconcile with the fact that the ambition to develop his knowledge beyond human boundaries is in the end inconsequential within the grand scheme of life.
Chapter II
Still immersed amongst the mountains of the Alps, Victor is afforded the “greatest consolation that [he] was capable of receiving.” Chasing more of this peace, Victor resolved to ascend the summit of Montanvert, as he justifies that the “sight Intertextuality: when one work of literature references another. This is a fairly common and important device within Frankenstein! of the awful and majestic in nature had... the effect of solemnising the mind.” As he climbs, Shelley weaves an intertextual reference to her husband Percy Shelley’s poem ‘Mutability.’ (This is explored in more detail on page 38.) The poem essentially reinforces the idea that, unlike nature, mankind is not immortal, and that all individuals will one day be forgotten. As Victor reaches the top of Montanvert, he catches sight of a figure moving with “superhuman speed,” who Victor comes to realise is the “wretch” of his own creation. In this confrontation, the Creature is for the first time given a voice and as he proclaims that “all men hate the wretched,” and he evokes a sense of sympathy from readers for his plight. Interestingly, as they converse, it is evident that the Creature has assumed more power over his creator, ordering Victor to “comply with [his] conditions” and in general coming across as the more reasoned and responsible of the two. Shelley establishes a discernible juxtaposition between the two characters, as Victor’s dialogue is filled with a rage and fierceness toward the Creature, the Creature speaks calmly and appears far more patient. The Creature begs Victor to listen to his story. Initially, Victor refuses, but as the Creature expresses the isolation and sadness due to Victor’s selfish pursuits, Victor sees it as his duty as creator to acquiesce and hear about the Creature’s journey.
Chapter III
In this chapter, the audience is introduced to their third perspective as the Creature recounts his journey from his inception. Shelley heavily relies on aspects of sensationalism to capture the confusion and isolation felt by the Creature when first brought into the world. He “saw, felt, heard and smelt all at the same time,” was troubled by the onset of darkness and unsure about the “sensation of cold.” As the Creature articulates, he was “poor, helpless [and] miserable.” This intentionally encourages audiences to equate the Creature’s innocence to that of any young child and as a consequence, we are positioned to feel great anger toward Victor for having left the Creature in such a vulnerable position. With recurrent use of pathetic fallacy, the Creature then recounts a series of events that led him to understand the functioning of nature. He discovered shelter, fire, and the steps to obtaining nourishing food. However, he also had his first, failed, encounter with humankind. In searching for food one day he ventured into a town where, upon perceiving him, the inhabitants of the village screamed, attacked him, and fled. As a result, he forms a negative view about humankind very early on and seeks to escape the “barbarity of man” immediately.
Finding an abandoned cottage, the Creature decided to live there for a time. It is here that he first encounters the De Lacey family. In observing the father and his son and daughter in their home, the Creature comes to understand the concept of companionship and family. Their benevolence at once “won [The Creature’s] reverence and...enticed [his] love.” Therefore, Shelley introduces the De Lacey family as a device through whom the audience could realise the innate goodness and human tendencies possessed by the Creature.
Chapter IV
Highlighting the intrinsic desire and thus necessity for companionship amongst individuals, the Creature “longed to join” the De Laceys, but “dared not.” Instead, as he continues to watch their daily lives, the Creature commits to discovering the “motives which influenced their actions.” Through this, the Creature demonstrates the same desire to learn as Victor, and perhaps suggests that a craving for knowledge is another intrinsic component of human existence. The Creature is troubled by his realisation that despite enjoying each other’s company, the family were “not entirely happy” and is eventually able to credit some of this unhappiness to suffering from poverty. In another depiction of the Creature’s innate goodness and in an attempt to lessen their experiences of poverty, he abstains from stealing food and materials from the family, instead resolving to collect berries and nuts and wood for their house. Essentially, the Creature’s initial experiences with the De Lacey family functioned to render him fit for coexistence within human society. As he continues to recount, he learned more and more about compassion and optimism, and also developed an interest in their means of communication, determining to learn their language so that he too could express his emotions and form meaningful relationships. Discovering the names of the son and daughter; Felix and Agatha, it is evident that the Creature begins to perceive them as most would perceive their own parents and siblings. Filling a position that should have been held by Victor, the Creature insists that the De Lacey family are the “arbiters of his future destiny.”
Chapter V
This is a critical chapter because its events instigate the Creature’s transformation into a malevolent individual. The first key event is the arrival of Safie to the De Lacey’s house. With a “countenance of angelic beauty,” Safie’s arrival is seen to delight not only the Creature, but also the De Lacey household and in particular Felix. Like the Creature, Safie does not appear to conform to the language and semblance of the family, yet, though foreign, she is accepted into their household because of her beauty. Safie’s experience contrasted with the Creature’s truly stands to criticise the prejudiced nature of mankind toward physical differences.
However, Safie’s arrival proves momentous for the Creature, because Felix commits to teaching her his language and as a consequence, the Creature is able to listen in and develop his use of their language as well. Listening to Felix read from a book titled Ruins of Empires, the Creature begins to learn about the divisions of human society, and the tension between acts of virtue and compassion, and acts of malice and selfishness. In learning so much about the functioning of human society, the Creature is inclined to perceive himself through a human lens, which only works to magnify his own alterity, realising that he “was not even of the same nature as man.” That the Creature’s “sorrow only increased with knowledge” reflects Shelley’s personal view that the acquirement of knowledge can be harmful. Indeed, it reiterates to the Creature that he is a “blot upon the earth,” and awakens a sense of self-pity, mixed with anger, at the fact that unlike those around him, he had no friends or relations and was entirely alone.
Chapter VI
This chapter doesn’t give us much to analyse, as it just involves the Creature re-telling the history of the De Lacey’s and Safie. In a nutshell, surmised from the Creature’s very vague recap, Safie’s father, a Turkish man, was imprisoned by the government when he made his way to France. Felix was at the trial that condemned Safie’s father to death, and out of an indignation toward this decision, Felix visited the father’s prison cell, which his where he met Safie, and he quickly fell in love with her. Thus, with the promise of her hand in marriage, Felix endeavoured to smuggle her father out of prison and sneak both Safie and her father to refuge outside of France. Yet when this happened, Safie’s father failed to follow through with his promise and took Safie with him back to Turkey. To make matters worse, Felix’s plan was discovered by the French government, and as punishment for his actions, he and his family were exiled from France. That Safie then resolutely found her own way back to Felix in the end is testament to her independence and headstrong nature. Rather than complying with her father’s demands, she prioritised her own desires, and in this way can be seen to typify the modern woman that Shelley so admired and advocated for within her own society.
Chapter VII
In this chapter, the Creature comes across a number of books that he begins to read. Notably, they shape a lot of his thought patterns throughout the remainder of the novel. The books that he reads each stands as symbolic of something important about the Creature’s perception of human society. (See page 36 for an in-depth discussion of each of these!) Ultimately, his reading challenges him to question “who was I? What was I? Whence did I come?” furthering his awareness of how little he fits into the society he has found himself in. During this time, the Creature discovers the journal that Victor had kept in the months prior to his creation. His new-found ability to read and interpret language means that by reading this diary, he is able to comprehend that he had a creator, and that this creator not only selfishly created a being who could not exist happily within human society, but also recklessly disregarded the paternal responsibility he had toward the Creature by abandoning his ‘son.’ This instilled in him an even greater anger, and a committed intention to seek revenge on his “accursed creator.”
However, as time passed, the Creature decided to finally approach the De Lacey household. He reasoned that it would be best to first form a relationship with the blind father, who could not judge him on his appearance. One day, when Felix, Agatha, and Safie were not home, the Creature knocked on the door and converses with the father, who willingly welcomed him into the house.
As they speak, the Creature tells of his loneliness and failed attempts to be accepted, alluding to his horrible visage as he says that “a fatal prejudice clouds [society’s] eyes.” This statement serves two purposes because in the literal sense it explains how mankind is unable to see the quality of the Creature’s character as they are distracted by his frightening appearance, and conversely, the blind man whose vision is perpetually impaired is the only one who is able to see the Creature’s well-meaning aspects. Unfortunately for the Creature, the rest of the De Lacey family arrive home too early for the Creature to have fully explained himself to the father, and their “horror and consternation” at seeing him caused Agatha to faint and Felix to violently attack the Creature, driving him from the cottage.
Chapter VIII
This chapter most acutely captures the Creature’s beastly transformation. The fact that the De Lacey’s, who embodied human goodness and benevolence, treated him so terribly confirms to the Creature that his existence is destined to be lonely and unhappy. He notes that this realisation evoked feelings of “rage and revenge.” In anger, the Creature “declared war against [humankind] and... against him who formed me” and decided to hunt down Victor. On this journey, the Creature to has yet another terrible encounter with mankind when, in an act of innate goodness, he saves a young girl who slips into the stream and appeared to be drowning. Instead of being thanked, he is shot at by the girl’s father. The “injustice and ingratitude” shown by the father yet again reinforces the Creature’s hatred for humankind and spurs him on toward Victor’s hometown.
It was night when the Creature finally arrived in Geneva, and as he was looking for shelter to rest for the night, the Creature encounters a young boy. The boy’s age causes the Creature to hope that he may be “unprejudiced” and have “lived too short a time to have imbibed a horror of deformity.” However, the young boy yells and screams at the Creature, labelling him a “monster” and an “ugly wretch.” That such a young child reacts in this manner allows Shelley to demonstrate how intrinsically bigoted society is, and how our innocent nature is tarnished so quickly by the thoughts and behaviours of those around us. On learning that this young boy shares the surname Frankenstein, the Creature sees him as a potential victim on his path to seeking revenge and so mercilessly kills the young boy. To make things worse, he then came upon a woman (who we learn is Justine) sleeping in the barn. His first murder having “stirred the fiend within [him],” the Creature decides to frame this woman by taking the boy’s necklace and placing it into the folds of Justine’s dress so that it appears she committed the murder. Transitioning back to the Creature and Victor on the summit of Montanvert, it is clear that he re-tells this part of his journey with an apparent pride, as if to stress to Victor just how ruthless and angry he is about his predicament. Importantly, he also alludes to Victor’s role in bringing about those deaths as he again laments that he is “alone and miserable,” reinforcing the inversion of the master-slave relationship that we mentioned earlier. Establishing his powerful hold over Victor, the Creature concludes the chapter by issuing Victor with one very clear demand: to create a female companion of the same species and with the same defects as himself.
Chapter IX
This chapter is dedicated to the Creature attempting to guilt Victor into agreeing to create a female companion for him. The narration has been re-assumed by Victor, and the Creature talks of the cruelty of Victor’s actions, evoking a small amount of sympathy from his creator who cannot ignore his culpability in fostering such loneliness and hatred within his Creature. With the Creature promising to flee and never harm mankind again if his wish is granted, Victor agrees to create the female companion. This chapter contributes to Shelley’s Romantic celebration of the importance of companionship and dangers of isolation; Victor is able to recognise that in granting the Creature a friend, he may restore some sense of goodness and reason within his progeny
