Chapter 10 — Teaching Companion

What it asks It asks whether being easily moved by scenes and words is a weakness or a strength, tested against Victor's own changes of mood in this chapter.

One reading

A weakness: Victor's peace does not last the night, and a mind that every wind can move is at the mercy of its moods.

• All of soul-inspiriting fled with sleep, and dark melancholy clouded every thought.
• We rest; a dream has power to poison sleep.

Another reading

A strength: the same openness lets the grand scenes lift him, and it is what lets the creature's words reach him at last.

• They elevated me from all littleness of feeling
• My heart was full, and I did not answer him

Listen for

• Ties Victor's complaint to his own swing from the valley's peace to the morning's gloom.
• Sees that being moved can open a mind as well as unsettle it.
• Connects the complaint to what words do to Victor later, on the ice.

If stuck

• How does Victor feel as he falls asleep in the valley, and how does he feel when he wakes?
• What does Victor say would leave us “nearly free”?
• Would someone who could not be moved by any word listen better, or worse?

A strong answer Victor's complaint fits his own day: at night the mountains “bade me be at peace”, yet by morning “All of soul-inspiriting fled with sleep”. A mind like that is at the mercy of weather and chance, and the verse he quotes says no feeling lasts. But the same openness lets the grand scenes lift him “from all littleness of feeling”, and on the ice it is what lets a speech reach him: by the end his “heart was full”. A strong answer weighs both and asks which matters more in a man about to be asked for a hearing.

What it asks It asks what the author gains by showing the creature's speed and size, through Victor's eyes, before the creature has said a word.

One reading

The sight makes the threat real before the plea: a being who bounds over ice Victor crossed with care could kill him, so when he chooses words instead, both his pleas and his threats carry weight.

• He bounded over the crevices in the ice, among which I had walked with caution; his stature, also, as he approached, seemed to exceed that of man.
• Remember, thou hast made me more powerful than thyself; my height is superior to thine, my joints more supple.

Another reading

The order puts the reader where Victor stands: we judge the shape before we hear the voice, and Victor's curses come before the creature has spoken, so the voice has to undo what the eye has already decided.

• I perceived, as the shape came nearer (sight tremendous and abhorred!) that it was the wretch whom I had created.
• But I scarcely observed this

Listen for

• Notices that Victor names the figure and curses it before it has spoken.
• Sees that the creature's size is what makes both his restraint and his threats matter.
• Connects the order here, sight first, to the hands the creature later puts over Victor's eyes.

If stuck

• What does Victor see first, and what does he decide it is?
• What does the creature say about his own strength once he speaks?
• Would the first speech land differently if we had heard it before we saw him?

A strong answer The author gives us the body before the voice: a figure that bounds over crevices where Victor “had walked with caution” and whose height “seemed to exceed that of man”. Read one way, that sight makes everything the creature says afterwards weigh more, since a being who could kill Victor chooses instead to say “Be calm!” and to argue, and his later threats are credible for the same reason. Read another way, the order puts the reader in Victor's place: we have judged the shape before it speaks, as Victor has, and the voice must work against a verdict the eye has already given. A strong answer notices that Victor says he barely looked at the face, and says what that does to a hearing that has not yet begun.

What it asks It asks the student to read the comparison from Victor's side: if the creature is Adam or the fallen angel, what that makes Victor, and what the part carries with it.

One reading

A maker and lord who owes his creature care: the creature offers to be docile to his “natural lord and king” if Victor does his part, and says justice, clemency and affection are owed to him most of all.

• I am thy creature, and I will be even mild and docile to my natural lord and king if thou wilt also perform thy part, the which thou owest me.
• to whom thy justice, and even thy clemency and affection, is most due.

Another reading

A judge who has already passed sentence: the fallen angel is driven out, and the creature insists it was “for no misdeed”, which makes Victor the one who punished where there was no crime and no hearing.

• I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.
• Have I not suffered enough, that you seek to increase my misery?

Listen for

• Hears that the comparison praises Victor's power and accuses his use of it in one breath.
• Sees that calling Victor “natural lord and king” also hands him duties.
• Keeps “for no misdeed” as the creature's own claim, which the chapter has not tested.

If stuck

• What does the creature call Victor a few lines earlier, and what does he say Victor owes him?
• What is the difference between being Adam and being the fallen angel?
• If Victor is the maker in this comparison, who is the judge?

A strong answer The comparison makes Victor the maker: if the creature is “thy Adam”, Victor is the one who gave him life and owes him what a maker owes, which the creature spells out as justice, clemency and affection, and he offers to be “docile” in return. But “rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed” gives Victor a second part, the one who cast him out, a judge who punished where there was no crime. A strong answer sees that the comparison flatters and accuses at once, says which part Victor's own words accept (he curses “the hands that formed you”), and keeps “for no misdeed” as the creature's claim, since his tale has not yet been told.

What it asks It asks the student to judge Victor's own account of why he will not listen: whether his rage is a real limit he is admitting or a reason he gives himself for refusing.

One reading

An honest admission: his rage has already stopped his speech once, and he curses himself along with the creature.

• rage and hatred had at first deprived me of utterance
• Cursed (although I curse myself) be the hands that formed you!

Another reading

An excuse: he blames even his own unfairness on the creature and uses it to send him away unheard.

• You have made me wretched beyond expression.
• Begone! Relieve me from the sight of your detested form.

Listen for

• Takes Victor's words seriously before doubting them.
• Notices that Victor blames the creature even for his own unfairness.
• Asks whether a man in Victor's state can judge anyone fairly.

If stuck

• What, according to Victor, has taken away his power to consider?
• Whom does Victor curse besides the creature?
• Does Victor weigh the creature's words later in the chapter?

A strong answer Victor's rage is real: it “deprived me of utterance” when the creature first came near, and he curses his own hands along with the creature. Read that way, the line honestly admits that he cannot judge fairly. Yet he lays even that on the creature (“You have left me”), and he follows it at once with “Begone!”, so the admission becomes a reason not to listen. A strong answer may notice that by the chapter's end Victor does weigh “the various arguments that he had used”, and ask whether the power to consider was lost or only set aside.

What it asks It asks the student to hear the tone of the gesture: whether the creature grants Victor's demand in good faith or turns Victor's own words against him.

One reading

Obeying, in earnest: he takes away only the sight Victor hates, so that Victor can still listen, and he asks for compassion.

• thus I take from thee a sight which you abhor.
• Still thou canst listen to me and grant me thy compassion.

Another reading

Mocking, or a show of power: he takes Victor at his word, lays hands on him unasked, and ends by making a demand.

• “Thus I relieve thee, my creator,” he said, and placed his hated hands before my eyes, which I flung from me with violence;
• By the virtues that I once possessed, I demand this from you.

Listen for

• Hears that the creature repeats Victor's own word, “relieve”.
• Notices what the gesture takes away and what it leaves: sight, not hearing.
• Notices how Victor answers the touch.

If stuck

• What has Victor just asked to be relieved of?
• With the hands over his eyes, what can Victor still do?
• What does Victor do with the creature's hands?

A strong answer Victor asks to be relieved of “the sight of your detested form”, and the creature does exactly that, covering his eyes so that Victor can still listen. Taken in earnest, the gesture sets the speaker apart from the sight Victor hates and asks only to be heard. Taken another way, it turns Victor's words back on him and lays hands on him unasked, and Victor flings them away “with violence”. A strong answer listens for both tones in “Thus I relieve thee, my creator” and says which one the creature's next words support.

What it asks It asks whether the decision the creature hands Victor is a real one: he says Victor “can decide” once the tale is told, and in the same breath says what will follow if Victor refuses.

One reading

Free: the creature leaves the judgment to Victor, asks not to be spared, and says Victor may destroy him once he has heard the tale.

• Listen to my tale; when you have heard that, abandon or commiserate me, as you shall judge that I deserve.
• Yet I ask you not to spare me; listen to me, and then, if you can, and if you will, destroy the work of your hands.

Another reading

Not free: the choice comes with a threat to everyone Victor loves, and the creature has already said what he does to his enemies, so a verdict given under that threat is not a free one.

• if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends.
• or become the scourge of your fellow creatures and the author of your own speedy ruin.

Listen for

• Notices that the offer and the threat sit in the same speech, a few lines apart.
• Separates a judge who is free to decide from one who decides with a threat over him.
• Asks what Victor's decision would be worth if it were made out of fear.

If stuck

• What does the creature say Victor will be able to do once the tale is told?
• What does he say will happen if Victor refuses?
• Can you judge someone fairly while they are threatening you?

A strong answer There is a case that Victor is free: the creature puts the judgment in his hands, “abandon or commiserate me, as you shall judge that I deserve”, and even tells him he may destroy “the work of your hands” once he has heard. But his first speech named the price of refusal, the “blood of your remaining friends”, and the speech that offers the judgment also warns that he will keep “no terms with my enemies”, so the decision is offered with a threat over it. A strong answer says whether a choice made under threat is still a choice, and what that does to Victor's standing as the one who decides; it does not say what Victor will decide, since the tale has not been told.

What it asks It asks for a thesis on what turns Victor from “I will not hear you” to sitting by the fire to listen, with the strongest objection the chapter offers and a revision that answers it.

One reading

Argument wins: Victor says he weighed the creature's reasons, and he comes away with a first sense of what a creator owes.

• I weighed the various arguments that he had used and determined at least to listen to his tale.
• For the first time, also, I felt what the duties of a creator towards his creature were

Another reading

Need and fear win: Victor names curiosity and the wish to learn about his brother's death, and the threats hang over everyone he knows.

• I was partly urged by curiosity, and compassion confirmed my resolution.
• I had hitherto supposed him to be the murderer of my brother, and I eagerly sought a confirmation or denial of this opinion.
• not only you and your family, but thousands of others, shall be swallowed up in the whirlwinds of its rage.

Listen for

• A thesis that names one cause and defends it with the chapter's words.
• An objection taken from the chapter, such as Victor's own list of motives or the names he still uses.
• A revision that changes the thesis rather than repeating it.

If stuck

• What reasons does Victor give for following?
• Which of the creature's lines would frighten Victor most?
• What does Victor still call the creature as they enter the hut?

A strong answer A strong thesis might argue that the creature wins by argument: Victor says he “weighed the various arguments that he had used” and felt, “For the first time”, what a creator owes his creature. The strongest objection is Victor's own list, which puts curiosity first and adds the wish to learn whether the creature killed his brother, while the threat to “thousands of others” hangs over everything. A revision might hold that the arguments work only because grief and fear have left Victor ready to be moved, and might note that he still calls the creature “the fiend” and “my odious companion” as he sits down to listen.

What it asks It asks the chapter's whole question: whether the hearing on the glacier judges the creature, whom Victor charges with murder, or Victor, whom the creature charges with spurning and seeking to destroy what he made, and how the chapter holds the two charges together.

One reading

The creature is on trial: Victor accuses him of murder, and he speaks as the accused, asking to be heard before he is judged.

• restore those victims whom you have so diabolically murdered!
• The guilty are allowed, by human laws, bloody as they are, to speak in their own defence before they are condemned.

Another reading

Victor is on trial: the creature turns the charge around and accuses his maker of failing his duty and of meaning to kill without a hearing.

• You accuse me of murder, and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature.
• How dare you sport thus with life?
• be not equitable to every other and trample upon me alone

Listen for

• A thesis that names who judges, who accuses and who pleads.
• An objection built from the lines the other side would quote.
• A revision that keeps both the pleas and the threats in view.
• Leaves room for what the creature's tale, only just begun, may still show.

If stuck

• Who accuses whom of what in this chapter?
• Who asks the other to judge, and who refuses to listen?
• Where is each of them, and who is speaking, when the chapter ends?

A strong answer One thesis says the creature is on trial: Victor charges him with murder, and he asks for what the accused are allowed, a chance “to speak in their own defence before they are condemned”. The strongest objection is that he turns the charge around: Victor would destroy his own creature “with a satisfied conscience”, and the creature tells his maker, “Do your duty towards me”. A revision might hold that each stands accused by the other and that the hearing is not over, since the tale has only begun as the chapter ends. A strong answer keeps the threats and the pleas in view and does not treat the creature's account of himself as proven.