Chapter 9 — Teaching Companion

What it asks It asks why one kind of hiding is open to Victor and the other is not. His father asks him to keep his grief from showing, for the sake of the living. Victor says he would have been “the first to hide my grief and console my friends”, if remorse and terror were not mixed in. Instead he answers with “a look of despair” and tries “to hide myself from his view.” The student explains what closes the first kind of hiding to him and leaves only the second.

One reading

Hiding grief would mean staying among his family and acting a part: an untroubled face, comfort for others, and a secret kept the whole time. His father asks for exactly that, an “appearance”. With remorse and terror inside him, Victor cannot play it. Hiding himself asks nothing; he only has to keep away.

• is it not a duty to the survivors that we should refrain from augmenting their unhappiness by an appearance of immoderate grief?
• I should have been the first to hide my grief and console my friends if remorse had not mingled its bitterness, and terror its alarm, with my other sensations.

Another reading

His face would give him away. Plain grief is safe to show, but what is in his face is not plain grief. Elizabeth later sees “despair, and sometimes of revenge” there, and trembles. A man with a secret cannot trust his face, so he keeps it out of sight.

• Now I could only answer my father with a look of despair
• There is an expression of despair, and sometimes of revenge, in your countenance that makes me tremble.

Listen for

• Hears the father’s word “appearance”: he asks Victor to act calm for others’ sake, not to stop grieving.
• Names what Victor says stops him: “remorse” and “terror” mixed in with the grief.
• Sees that hiding grief would mean staying close and keeping up a face, while hiding himself only means keeping away.
• May look ahead: by the chapter’s end he has taken himself out of everyone’s sight, not only his father’s.

If stuck

• What does his father ask him to do with his grief?
• What does Victor say he would have done, if things were different?
• What does Victor do while his father is speaking?

A strong answer A strong response explains why one kind of hiding is closed to Victor. One reader says hiding grief would mean staying among his family and acting a part, which remorse and terror will not let him do, while hiding himself asks only that he keep away. Another says his face would betray him: what shows there is not plain grief, and Elizabeth later sees “despair, and sometimes of revenge” in it. The best answers notice that the father asks for the first kind of hiding and gets the second.

What it asks It asks why the temptation comes in calm and not in crisis. Victor rows out at night and lets the boat drift. It is when the lake is silent and beautiful, and he is “the only unquiet thing” on it, that he wants the waters to “close over me and my calamities for ever.” The student explains what the peace does to him.

One reading

The peace shows him his own unrest. Everything around him is at rest except Victor, and the contrast makes his misery feel unbearable and out of place.

• I the only unquiet thing that wandered restless in a scene so beautiful and heavenly
• gave way to my own miserable reflections

Another reading

The peace is what he longs for. The silent lake has a stillness he cannot find in himself, and drowning would make it his for good. He already calls his solitude “deathlike”, and calls it a consolation.

• tempted to plunge into the silent lake, that the waters might close over me and my calamities for ever
• solitude was my only consolation—deep, dark, deathlike solitude.

Listen for

• Notices when the temptation comes: at night, alone, “when all was at peace around me”.
• Hears “the only unquiet thing”: Victor sets himself apart from the whole scene.
• Connects the silent water to the solitude he calls “deathlike”.
• May notice that what holds him back comes from outside the scene: Elizabeth, his father and his brother.

If stuck

• What is the lake like on the nights he is out on it?
• What is Victor like, compared with everything around him?
• What would the water give him if he went into it?

A strong answer A strong response explains how calm can tempt. One reader says the peace sharpens his pain, since he is “the only unquiet thing” in a heavenly scene. Another says the peace is the very thing he wants, and that the waters closing over him would make it last, as his “deathlike solitude” already hints. The best answers notice that what stops him is not the scene at all, but the people he would leave behind.

What it asks It asks the student to explain an exception. Everywhere else in these pages Victor avoids being seen: he shuns company and hides from his father. The one being he wishes to meet is the creature, “that I might wreak the utmost extent of abhorrence on his head.” The student decides what that meeting would give him that no other could.

One reading

Revenge gives him something to do. Remorse leaves him helpless, but meeting the creature would let him act, punish someone other than himself, and avenge William and Justine.

• Remorse extinguished every hope.
• I wished to see him again, that I might wreak the utmost extent of abhorrence on his head and avenge the deaths of William and Justine.

Another reading

The creature is his own act in living form. Facing it is the one way to face what he did, and destroying it would undo his mistake. Hatred lets him meet his guilt as something he can fight.

• I ardently wished to extinguish that life which I had so thoughtlessly bestowed.
• the monster whom I had created

Listen for

• Notices the contrast: Victor hides from every face but this one.
• Hears his own part in his rage: “that life which I had so thoughtlessly bestowed”.
• Sees that hatred lets him act where remorse leaves him with nothing to do.
• May notice that the one face he seeks is the one face that is not a man’s.

If stuck

• Whom does Victor avoid in this chapter?
• What does he want to do if he meets the creature?
• How does he describe the life he gave it?

A strong answer A strong response explains the exception. One reader says revenge gives Victor a deed to do when “Remorse extinguished every hope”, and someone else to punish. Another says the creature is his own act in living form, and that to “extinguish that life which I had so thoughtlessly bestowed” would be to unmake his mistake. The best answers notice that this is the only meeting Victor seeks, in a chapter where he hides from everyone else.

What it asks It asks the student to judge Victor by Elizabeth’s words and by his own. She pictures a murderer who “walks about the world free, and perhaps respected”, and says she would rather suffer on the scaffold than be him. Victor, listening, names himself “the true murderer”, though “not in deed”. The student decides whether her picture fits him, and what the gap between deed and effect is worth.

One reading

Yes. The monster he created killed William, and Justine died for it, while Victor walks free and says nothing. By his own verdict he is the one Elizabeth describes, and her kindness falls on him without her knowing it.

• I, not in deed, but in effect, was the true murderer.
• he walks about the world free, and perhaps respected

Another reading

No. The wretch she imagines is untroubled, perhaps even respected. Victor did not kill, began life meaning well, and lives in torment. He is free in body only.

• I had begun life with benevolent intentions
• I was seized by remorse and the sense of guilt, which hurried me away to a hell of intense tortures such as no language can describe.

Listen for

• Separates what Victor did from what came of it: “not in deed, but in effect”.
• Notices that Elizabeth’s murderer is “free”, while Victor is “seized by remorse”.
• Weighs Victor’s silence: he knows what Elizabeth does not, and says nothing.
• Answers the strongest objection from the other side, not a weak one.

If stuck

• How does Elizabeth picture the murderer?
• What verdict does Victor pass on himself while she speaks?
• Can a person be guilty of a death they did not cause with their own hands?

A strong answer A strong thesis takes a side and tests it. A student who says yes might use Victor’s own verdict, “not in deed, but in effect”, and point out that he walks free and silent while Justine has died. The strongest objection is that Elizabeth’s wretch is untroubled and “perhaps respected”, while Victor lives in “a hell of intense tortures”. A good revision might grant the difference in conscience and still ask whether suffering in silence makes him less guilty, since that silence keeps the truth from Elizabeth.

What it asks It asks the student to explain why one comfort lands where another misses. After Elizabeth speaks, Victor says “the very accents of love were ineffectual.” In the ravine of Arve, the weight on his spirit is “sensibly lightened”. The student decides what the mountains offer that a loving cousin, with the best words, cannot. The chapter leaves open how long the gift lasts.

One reading

Silence. The mountains ask nothing of him and know nothing. Elizabeth’s comfort asks him to banish his passions and remember the friends whose hopes rest on him, which only reminds him of the secret he keeps from them. Before a mountain there is no one to fail.

• Dear Victor, banish these dark passions.
• Remember the friends around you, who centre all their hopes in you.

Another reading

Size. The mountains speak of a power so great that his guilt and his fear of the creature shrink beside it. Love cannot make his sorrows small; the Alps can.

• spoke of a power mighty as Omnipotence
• I ceased to fear or to bend before any being less almighty than that which had created and ruled the elements

Listen for

• Names what Elizabeth’s comfort asks of him: to banish his passions and remember those who hope in him.
• Notices that in the ravine his fear lifts: he “ceased to fear” any being less than the maker of the elements.
• Sees that “maternal Nature” bids him weep no more, as his family could not.
• Answers the strongest objection: the relief fades, and he is “fettered again to grief”.

If stuck

• What does Elizabeth ask Victor to do?
• What happens to the weight on his spirit in the ravine?
• Is it easier to be comforted by someone who knows you, or by something that does not?

A strong answer A strong thesis names one gift and defends it. A student who says silence might point to Elizabeth’s friends “who centre all their hopes in you”, and argue that her love asks Victor to be the man they hope for, while the mountains ask nothing. The strongest objection is that the mountains work by size: before “a power mighty as Omnipotence” he stops fearing the creature. A good revision might hold both, and admit that the gift does not last.

What it asks It asks the chapter’s whole question. After every comfort at home has missed, Victor leaves suddenly for the Alps to lose himself in their “magnificence” and “eternity.” The student decides whether the trip begins to mend him or helps him avoid what he cannot tell anyone, and the chapter does not settle it: the relief comes and goes, and it ends in sleep.

One reading

Healing. The mountains reach him where his family could not. His spirit lightens, his fear lifts, Nature soothes him like a mother, and he blesses the sleep that finally comes.

• The weight upon my spirit was sensibly lightened
• The very winds whispered in soothing accents, and maternal Nature bade me weep no more.

Another reading

Hiding. He goes to forget himself, not to face what he did, and he leaves the people he lives to protect. The relief does not last, and what he blesses at the end is “oblivion,” not peace.

• I suddenly left my home
• I found myself fettered again to grief and indulging in all the misery of reflection.
• I felt it as it came and blessed the giver of oblivion.

Listen for

• Takes a position and holds it against the other half of the chapter, not only one side of the journey.
• Notices that the relief comes and goes: “sensibly lightened”, then “fettered again”.
• Asks what Victor would need for healing that the mountains cannot give: someone who knows.
• May argue that hiding and healing can be the same act for a while.

If stuck

• Why does Victor leave home so suddenly?
• What does the valley do for him, and how long does it last?
• Can you heal from something you are trying to forget?

A strong answer A strong thesis commits and then tests itself. A student who argues healing might point to the weight “sensibly lightened” and to “maternal Nature” bidding him weep no more. The strongest objection is his own aim, “to forget myself”, and the relapse into being “fettered again to grief”. A good revision might say the mountains give him rest without touching the secret, so the chapter leaves the question open as it ends on “the giver of oblivion”.