Frankenstein

Chapter 12

Mary Shelley · Mountaineers 10th–12th

Teaching Companion Print Adapt for your student

Copywork

I had admired the perfect forms of my cottagers—their grace, beauty, and delicate complexions; but how was I terrified when I viewed myself in a transparent pool! At first I started back, unable to believe that it was indeed I who was reflected in the mirror; and when I became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification. Alas! I did not yet entirely know the fatal effects of this miserable deformity.

My organs were indeed harsh, but supple; and although my voice was very unlike the soft music of their tones, yet I pronounced such words as I understood with tolerable ease. It was as the ass and the lap-dog; yet surely the gentle ass whose intentions were affectionate, although his manners were rude, deserved better treatment than blows and execration.

Read the second passage aloud. Each time he admits a fault, a “but” or a “yet” follows close behind. What does that pattern do to his plea?

For the educator Two passages, six sentences. The first is the pool. It opens on the cottagers’ “perfect forms” and turns on “but” to his own terror. In the long sentence after it, the half after the semicolon holds back its main clause (“I was filled”) until belief has fully arrived, and then the teller speaks from the present: “Alas!” The second is his plea for his voice. It moves through “indeed harsh, but supple” and “although … yet”, and its last sentence grants the ass its rude manners before it claims better treatment. Both vocabulary words from the copywork, “despondence” and “execration”, come from these sentences. For the talk prompt, listen for a student who hears the concessions as a way of winning a hearing, and for one who hears them as honesty; both can be argued from the page.

Discussion

Narration Tell the chapter back, from the night he lies awake on his straw to the spring that ends it.

He used to steal part of the cottagers’ food at night, and then he stopped. He could have left the stealing out of the story he tells Victor. Why does he put it in? Character
Felix keeps finding his woodpile filled “by an invisible hand.” The creature does the work at night, while the family sleeps. What does he get from giving in secret? Moral reasoning
His first words are names of things, like “fire” and “bread.” He can also pick out “good, dearest, unhappy”, but he cannot use them yet. What would it take for him to use them? Theme
When he saw himself in a pool, he “started back, unable to believe that it was indeed I”. What had he expected to see? Inference

Make a Connection Think of a story, or a time you know of, when someone learned a new language, or a new way of talking, to be let in somewhere. How far did the words take them?

Vocabulary

despondence: At first I started back, unable to believe that it was indeed I who was reflected in the mirror; and when I became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification. Low, heavy hopelessness; the state of having lost heart (from a Latin word for giving up). At the pool it comes paired with “mortification”, a burning shame, so the face he sees brings despair and humiliation at once.
execration: It was as the ass and the lap-dog; yet surely the gentle ass whose intentions were affectionate, although his manners were rude, deserved better treatment than blows and execration. Cursing; hatred spoken aloud. He sets it beside “blows”: harm done with the hand and harm done with the voice. He pins his hopes on words, and here he names the harm that words can do.
arbiters: I looked upon them as superior beings who would be the arbiters of my future destiny. People whose judgment settles a matter; those who have the final say. By calling the cottagers this, he hands them the power to decide what becomes of him before they know he exists.
venerable: Nothing could exceed the love and respect which the younger cottagers exhibited towards their venerable companion. Worthy of deep respect because of age, goodness or long standing. He uses it twice of the old man, whose son and daughter treat him with “love and respect”; it is the word of someone looking up.

Critical thinking

When he pictures meeting them, he imagines they will be “disgusted” at first. He plans to win them over with words after that. How sound is that plan?
He once hoped he could make the family happy again. When he tells Victor about it, he breaks in to call himself a “foolish wretch”. Yet the chapter ends on “bright rays of hope.” How should a reader take that hope?
The cottagers speak of a “good spirit”; at the pool the creature calls himself a “monster”. Which name is truer?