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Frankenstein
Mountaineers · 10th–12th
The creature says that “sorrow only increased with knowledge.” Yet he goes on listening to every lesson Felix gives. Why does he keep learning what hurts him?
The tension Safie and the hidden creature are taught from the same book in the same weeks: she arrives a stranger without a word of the language, is kissed and welcomed, and turns the cottage’s sorrow to joy, while he, who boasts that he “improved more rapidly than the Arabian”, finds that “The gentle words of Agatha and the animated smiles of the charming Arabian were not for me.”
Two newcomers to one household: Safie is welcomed and taught in the open, while the creature takes the same instruction in secret and comes away with words for everything he lacks.
The creature goes on with his story to Victor and warns that what comes next made him what he is. It is spring. One day Felix seems deeply sad. Then a lady on horseback, veiled in black, comes to the cottage door and says only his name. She lifts her veil, his sorrow vanishes, and the family welcome her with kisses and embraces, though she and they share no language. She is Safie, and Felix begins to teach her their tongue. The creature, hidden in his hovel, takes the same lessons and learns faster than she does. Felix reads to her from Volney’s Ruins of Empires, and the listener learns the history of nations, weeps over the fate of America’s first peoples, and turns from human vice in disgust. Then he hears how people rank one another by birth and wealth, and the words turn him towards himself: he has no money, no friends, no kin, and a body unlike any he has seen. He asks “And what was I?” and finds that “sorrow only increased with knowledge.” Lessons about fathers, mothers and their infants deepen the question. The chapter ends as he turns back to the cottagers’ story and calls them his “protectors”, a name he admits is self-deceit.
Before reading, put the chapter’s first sentence on the board: events that “from what I had been, have made me what I am.” Ask what kind of events could make a person. Then read, and stop at each lesson the creature overhears (the language, the history of empires, the talk of property, the talk of families) to ask one thing: is he learning about them, or about himself? Do not explain why Safie has come or why the family is poor; the creature does not know yet.
Retell The student retells the chapter in four movements: Safie’s arrival and welcome; the shared lessons in speech and letters; Volney’s history; and the talk of property and families that turns him towards himself, ending on “protectors”. In each, look for what he learns and whom he judges by it.
Imitate the author After copying, the student writes two short passages of their own. The first is a question built on antithesis, as “so virtuous and magnificent, yet so vicious and base” is, about a person or a people they both admire and doubt. The second takes stock of a character in clauses joined by semicolons, weighing what the character lacks against what the character has, and ends on a question, as the second passage does.
Debate Take sides on the first written question. One side argues that he belongs near the top of Volney’s scale, and gathers “a sensitive being”, his “disgust and loathing” at vice, and his admiration of “virtue and good feelings”. The other argues that the scale has no place for him, and gathers “a great and virtuous man”, “unseen and unknown”, and how soon the talk of property turns him “towards myself”. Each side must answer the other’s best line, and neither may use what he does later in the book.
Purpose Close by setting the first sentence (“have made me what I am”) beside the last aside (“half-painful self-deceit”), and ask why Shelley frames the lessons this way: a teller who knows how it ends, and a learner who does not. Leave “I will soon explain to what these feelings tended” unanswered; the chapter leaves it open.
Easier Read aloud Safie’s arrival, the talk of property (“And what was I?”) and the last paragraph. Retell what Safie and the creature each learn and what each gets for it. Talk through the first two discussion questions, then answer the last written question aloud before writing it.
On level Talk through all four discussion questions in order, then write all three written questions as a thesis, the strongest objection and a revised thesis, each with lines from the chapter.
Harder Ask for one argued essay on the last written question that uses Safie’s welcome, the boast, Volney, the talk of property and the lichen, and that answers the best reading on the other side. Then ask the student to test the chapter’s first sentence: do these lessons alone make him “what I am”, when he also wishes he had never left his “native wood”?
1. Safie arrives with only one word the family knows: Felix’s name. Within hours the whole cottage is glad. What wins her that welcome?Inference
What it asks It asks the student to account for a welcome given without words. Safie and the cottagers cannot understand each other. She can say only “Felix”, and they answer her in signs. Yet within hours “her presence diffused gladness through the cottage”. The student decides what did the winning. The chapter does not say where she has come from or why Felix was sad before she came, and the card should not guess.
Her face. The creature, who tells the scene, gives it his longest description: the lifted veil, the “angelic beauty”, the hair, the eyes, the colour of her cheeks. Her face changes Felix’s at once. In his telling, the welcome begins with a face.
threw up her veil, and I beheld a countenance of angelic beauty and expression
every trait of sorrow vanished from his face
What she does. She weeps, holds out her hand, and kneels at the old man’s feet before a word can pass between them. Her welcome is won by gestures of feeling that need no language, and the old man answers in kind.
wiping a few tears from her lovely eyes, she held out her hand to Felix
the young stranger knelt at the old man’s feet and would have kissed his hand, but he raised her and embraced her affectionately
A strong answer A strong response names what wins the welcome and points to the page. One reader says it is her face: the veil comes up, Felix’s sorrow vanishes, and the teller lingers on her beauty longer than on anything else in the scene. Another says it is what she does: tears, an offered hand, a kneeling stranger, all before a word is shared. The best answers notice that either way the welcome comes before language, which matters to a listener who is learning that language in secret.
2. He boasts that he “improved more rapidly than the Arabian.” Safie does not know she is in a race with him. What does he get from coming first?Character
What it asks It asks what the boast is for. He takes Safie’s lessons from his hiding place, and he is ahead from the first day: most of her first twenty words “were those which I had before understood”. Soon he can follow and imitate “almost every word”, while she still speaks “in broken accents”. He says “I may boast”, and he says it to his listener long afterwards. The student names what it gives him to be the quicker pupil when no one knows he is in the room.
A field where he comes first. Everywhere else the chapter gives Safie the better part: the welcome, the kisses, the music. Here alone he outdoes her. Learning is the one ground where he can measure himself against someone and win, and it opens “a wide field for wonder and delight.”
I may boast that I improved more rapidly than the Arabian
this opened before me a wide field for wonder and delight
A kind of proof. Safie came as a stranger without their language, and she is taken in while she learns it. He set out to use “the same instructions to the same end”, and he is learning faster. If learning is what a newcomer owes, he has paid more of it than the newcomer has.
the idea instantly occurred to me that I should make use of the same instructions to the same end
she and I improved rapidly in the knowledge of language
A strong answer A strong response names a gain and grounds it. One reader says the race gives him the one field where he comes first, and he calls that field “wonder and delight.” Another says it is a kind of proof: Safie is being taken in as she learns, and he is learning faster. The best answers notice that he is racing someone who does not know he exists, and ask what a win is worth when no one sees it.
3. He asks, “And what was I?” He lists what he lacks, and then what he has: he is quicker, hardier and taller than people. What turns those strengths against him?Inference
What it asks It asks the student to read his answer to his own question closely. He has just heard that people prize “high and unsullied descent united with riches”. He takes stock: no money, no friends, no property, and a figure he calls “hideously deformed and loathsome”. Then come four advantages. He is more agile, lives on coarser food, bears heat and cold better, and is far taller. A list of strengths should help his case. Instead it leads to “Was I, then, a monster”. The student finds what turns it. He knows nothing of how he was made, and the card should not supply it.
Likeness. Each strength is one more way of being unlike people, and the sentence just before them says so. Right after them he finds that he has never seen or heard of anyone like him. Strength without a kind of his own only proves he is alone.
I was not even of the same nature as man.
When I looked around I saw and heard of none like me.
The scale he has just learned. The world Felix describes does not pay for strength. A man without descent or riches is “a vagabond and a slave”, and his powers are spent for others. Hardiness and size are a labourer’s gifts. On that scale they put him at the bottom, not the top.
without either he was considered, except in very rare instances, as a vagabond and a slave, doomed to waste his powers for the profits of the chosen few!
my stature far exceeded theirs
A strong answer A strong response says what turns the list and shows the turn on the page. One reader says the measure is likeness: each advantage is one more way he is “not even of the same nature as man”, and the next sentence finds no one like him. Another says the scale he has just been taught does not pay for strength, since a man without descent or riches wastes “his powers for the profits of the chosen few”. The best answers notice that the paragraph ends in a question, not a verdict.
4. He says no father watched over him as a baby, and no mother blessed him with smiles. Then he adds, “or if they had.” Why does he leave that door open?Character
What it asks It asks about four words he did not need. He has just heard how a father dotes on “the smiles of the infant” and how a mother’s life is “wrapped up in the precious charge”. He says no one did this for him. Then he qualifies it: perhaps someone did, and he cannot remember. The student decides why he will not shut the door. He knows nothing of his making, and the card should not fill that in.
Honesty. He cannot remember a beginning, so he cannot swear to one. He has already said he is “absolutely ignorant” of his creation. A careful witness says only what he knows, and all he knows of his past is a blank.
Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant
all my past life was now a blot, a blind vacancy in which I distinguished nothing
Hope he cannot give up. The “if” keeps a father possible, even a lost one. But his own next sentences push against it: he has never been small, and he has never seen anyone like him. The door stays open because he wants it open, not because the facts hold it.
From my earliest remembrance I had been as I then was in height and proportion.
I had never yet seen a being resembling me
A strong answer A strong response gives the four words a reason and tests it on the sentences that follow. One reader hears honesty: he is “absolutely ignorant” of his making, so he says only what he knows. Another hears a hope he will not let go, though his own memory says he was never small. The best answers notice that either way the lesson about families leaves him with a question he can answer only “with groans.”
1. Volney’s history gives him a way to rank people. At the top is “a great and virtuous man.” At the bottom is the vicious man, lower than “the blind mole or harmless worm.” Where does he belong on that scale?
What it asks It asks the student to place him on the first scale the chapter gives him. Volney’s history ranks beings by what they do: virtue is “the highest honour”, and vice sinks below the mole and the worm. He judges mankind by it at once, and turns from its crimes in disgust. He never says where he stands on it himself. The next lesson, on property and descent, is the one that makes him “turn towards myself”. The student builds a thesis about where he belongs, meets the strongest objection, and revises. He has harmed no one in this chapter, and later events may not be read back into it.
Near the top. The scale measures deeds, and its highest honour is open to any “sensitive being”, not only to men. On it he has nothing to answer for. He has harmed no one. He turns from vice, weeps for the wronged, and admires virtue in the cottagers. By the only scale of deeds he has been taught, he stands well.
To be a great and virtuous man appeared the highest honour that can befall a sensitive being
my wonder ceased and I turned away with disgust and loathing
I admired virtue and good feelings and loved the gentle manners and amiable qualities of my cottagers
Nowhere on it. The scale ranks men by what they do among others, and he has done nothing among anyone: he listens “unseen and unknown”. A scale of deeds has no place for a being who has had no chance to act. So he does not try to place himself on it. He takes up the next scale instead, where he can be placed, at the bottom.
a condition more abject than that of the blind mole or harmless worm
when I was unseen and unknown
The words induced me to turn towards myself.
A strong answer A strong thesis places him on the scale and argues from the page. A student might argue that he belongs near the top: the scale measures deeds, its highest honour can befall any “sensitive being”, and he has harmed no one while he weeps for the wronged and admires virtue. The strongest objection is that the scale ranks men by what they do among others, and he has done nothing among anyone; he listens “unseen and unknown”. A good revision might say that this is the one scale on which he could stand well, and that is why it matters that the very next lesson hands him a scale of birth and riches instead, on which he can stand only at the bottom.
2. The chapter ends with him calling the cottagers his “protectors.” They have never seen him, and he admits the name is “self-deceit.” What does Shelley gain by ending the chapter on that admission?
What it asks It asks the student to judge the chapter’s last move. After the groans of “What was I?”, he turns back to the cottagers. Their story stirred in him “indignation, delight, and wonder”, and every feeling ended in “additional love and reverence” for them. Then, in parentheses, he takes his own word apart: he “loved” to call them protectors, in “an innocent, half-painful self-deceit”. They do not know he exists. The student builds a thesis on what the chapter gains by closing there, tests it, and revises. The cottagers’ history is told afterwards, and the card does not tell it.
A softer close. After the groans, the chapter comes to rest on love and reverence. The name gives him, for a moment, what the lesson on families told him he lacks: someone who watches over him. Shelley lets him keep it, and even calls the deceit “innocent”.
which all terminated in additional love and reverence for my protectors
But where were my friends and relations?
A sharper one. The last thing he learns in the chapter is about himself: even his love leans on a name he knows is false. “Half-painful” carries the sorrow of the lessons into the very word that comforts him. And the teller, who knows what these feelings led to, will not let his listener take the comfort for the truth.
for so I loved, in an innocent, half-painful self-deceit, to call them
I will soon explain to what these feelings tended
A strong answer A strong thesis says what the ending does to the chapter and tests it. A student might argue that it softens the close: after the groans, Shelley lets him rest on “love and reverence” and calls even his self-deceit “innocent”. The strongest objection is that the parentheses take back the comfort as soon as it is given, so the chapter ends on one more painful piece of self-knowledge. A good revision might hold both: the name comforts him because he loves it, and it hurts because he knows better, and the chapter stops on a creature who can no longer have the one without the other.
3. The creature says that “sorrow only increased with knowledge.” Yet he goes on listening to every lesson Felix gives. Why does he keep learning what hurts him?
What it asks It asks the chapter’s whole question. He says that “sorrow only increased with knowledge”, and he wishes he had stayed in his “native wood”. Yet the next lessons, he says, were “impressed upon me even more deeply”, and he goes on listening through the talk of fathers, mothers and infants. Earlier the same study “opened before me a wide field for wonder and delight.” The student builds a thesis on why he keeps learning, tests it against the strongest other reading, and revises. The chapter does not settle whether knowledge is a curse, and the card does not either.
Because he cannot stop. Knowledge, he says, clings to the mind like lichen to rock. He tried to drive his thoughts away and could not, and the only end to pain he has heard of is death, which he fears. He keeps listening because there is no unlearning, and no way back to the wood.
It clings to the mind when it has once seized on it like a lichen on the rock.
I tried to dispel them, but sorrow only increased with knowledge.
I learned that there was but one means to overcome the sensation of pain, and that was death
Because the lessons are his only way in. The cottagers’ words and smiles are “not for me”, but their lessons reach him all the same. Through them he weeps with Safie, admires virtue, and comes to love his “protectors”. What hurts him is also the one bond he has with them.
except through means which I obtained by stealth, when I was unseen and unknown
wept with Safie over the hapless fate of its original inhabitants
The gentle words of Agatha and the animated smiles of the charming Arabian were not for me.
A strong answer A strong thesis gives a reason and holds it against the other. A student might argue that he cannot stop: knowledge clings like lichen, and there is no way back to the wood. The strongest objection is that he does not only endure the lessons but seeks them, because listening is the one bond he has with the cottage, and the same study once gave him “wonder and delight”. A good revision might say he keeps learning for the same reason it hurts: each lesson brings him nearer the cottagers in mind and shows him how far from them he stands, and he would rather have the nearness with the pain than neither.
He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil principle and at another as all that can be conceived of noble and godlike.A descendant or offspring; first, a young shoot cut from one plant to be grafted onto another. Here man looks like an offspring of evil itself. It is a word of family lines, and it comes just before the chapter’s talk of “descent” and “noble blood”, the lines he finds he does not have.
I heard of the discovery of the American hemisphere and wept with Safie over the hapless fate of its original inhabitants.Unlucky; struck by misfortune one did nothing to earn (from “hap”, an old word for chance, as in “happen” and “perhaps”). It names the first suffering he weeps over in the chapter, and it belongs to strangers.
I was, besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature as man.Supplied with; given a quality as if it were put on like a garment. It is close in sense to “endowed”, and it is usually said of gifts, such as grace or talent. He uses it of a body he calls “hideously deformed”, so the grammar of a gift carries what he feels as a curse.
He had chosen this work, he said, because the declamatory style was framed in imitation of the Eastern authors.Written as if to be spoken aloud to a crowd: grand, rhetorical, full of feeling. It names a style, not a content. Felix picks Volney for how it will sound to Safie, and the hidden listener takes in his first history of the world in that raised voice.