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Frankenstein
Mountaineers · 10th–12th
The creature asks to speak before he is condemned, as even the guilty may. Who is on trial on the glacier, the creature or Victor?
The tension Face to face, Victor meets the creature with curses and a lunge and swears “I will not hear you”; once the creature has covered Victor's eyes with his hands and led the way across the ice, Victor weighs “the various arguments that he had used” and feels “what the duties of a creator towards his creature were”.
How the speaker on the ice makes his case: he answers curses with reasons, sets duty against duty, and folds threats into his pleas.
Victor spends a day in the valley below the glacier, where the grand scenery calms his grief for a night; by morning the comfort is gone. He climbs Montanvert alone in the rain, crosses the sea of ice, and calls on the “Wandering spirits” to take him “away from the joys of life”. At that moment the creature he made comes toward him over the ice. Victor curses him and springs at him; the creature eludes him and, speech after speech, asks to be heard, mixing reasons, pleas and threats. When Victor demands to be spared the sight of him, the creature covers his eyes, then leads him to a hut on the mountain, where Victor sits by the fire to hear his tale.
Start with the first words each speaks on the ice: Victor's “Devil,” and the creature's “I expected this reception”. Ask what each expects of the other before either has given a reason.
Retell The student tells the chapter back in order: the valley and its brief comfort, the climb and the verse, the call on the ice, the meeting and Victor's curses, the creature's speeches and Victor's answers, the hands over the eyes, and the walk to the hut.
Imitate the author After copying the speech, the student writes five or six sentences about a different quarrel in the same order: a general truth, a charge against the listener, an offer of duty for duty, and a closing sentence that promises peace on one condition and warns what will follow if it is refused.
Debate Hold the hearing: one student argues the case against the creature from Victor's lines, another the case against Victor from the creature's. Each side must answer the strongest quotation the other side uses.
Purpose Close by asking why the chapter ends just as the creature begins his tale, and what changes for a reader who will now hear him tell it.
Easier Read the creature's speeches aloud together, then talk through discussion questions 4, 5 and 6 only.
On level Talk through all six discussion questions, then have the student write the last critical-thinking answer: a thesis, an objection drawn from the chapter, and a revision.
Harder Have the student write both critical-thinking answers, then trace every name Victor gives the creature, from “the wretch whom I had created” to “my odious companion”, and say whether the names change once Victor agrees to listen.
1. On the climb, Victor says that if we felt only hunger, thirst and desire, “we might be nearly free”. Instead, we are moved by “every wind that blows” and by a chance word. Is it a weakness or a strength to be moved so easily?Theme
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.
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.
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
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.
2. The figure on the ice bounds over crevices that Victor crossed “with caution”, and he seems taller than a man. Why might the author let us see his speed and size before we hear his voice?Author's choice
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.
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.
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
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.
3. The creature says he “ought to be thy Adam” but is “rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed”. What part does that comparison give Victor to play?Inference
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.
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.
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?
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.
4. Victor tells the creature, “You have left me no power to consider whether I am just to you or not.” Is that an honest admission, or an excuse?Character
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.
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!
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.
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.
5. Victor cries, “Relieve me from the sight of your detested form.” The creature answers, “Thus I relieve thee,” and covers Victor's eyes with his hands. Is he obeying Victor, or mocking him?Tone
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.
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.
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.
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.
6. The creature says that after his tale Victor “can decide”. Then he adds that “On you it rests” whether he leads “a harmless life” or becomes “the scourge of your fellow creatures”. Is Victor free to decide?Moral reasoning
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.
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.
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.
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.
1. Victor swears, “I will not hear you.” Yet he follows the creature across the ice and sits down by the fire to listen. What wins the hearing he swore he would not give?
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.
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
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.
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.
2. The creature asks to speak before he is condemned, as even the guilty may. Who is on trial on the glacier, the creature or Victor?
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.
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.
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
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.
Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us.Able to be dissolved: loosened, broken apart, or ended. The creature says only the destruction of one of them can undo his ties to Victor.
If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave them and you at peace; but if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends.Filled so full that no more is wanted, as when a hunger is fully fed. The creature pictures death as a beast's mouth, a “maw”, that he will feed.
accumulated ice, which, through the silent working of immutable laws, was ever and anon rent and torn, as if it had been but a plaything in their hands.Never changing; fixed for all time. Here it names the laws of nature at work on the glacier.
Nought may endure but mutability!The quality of being open to change; changeableness. In the verse it is the one thing said to endure.
I had hitherto supposed him to be the murderer of my brother, and I eagerly sought a confirmation or denial of this opinion.Until now; up to this time. Victor uses it for a belief he had held, which he now wants confirmed or denied.