Frankenstein

Chapter 14

Mary Shelley · Mountaineers 10th–12th

Teaching Companion Print Adapt for your student

Copywork

The news reached Felix and roused him from his dream of pleasure. His blind and aged father and his gentle sister lay in a noisome dungeon while he enjoyed the free air and the society of her whom he loved. This idea was torture to him.

Such were the events that preyed on the heart of Felix and rendered him, when I first saw him, the most miserable of his family. He could have endured poverty, and while this distress had been the meed of his virtue, he gloried in it; but the ingratitude of the Turk and the loss of his beloved Safie were misfortunes more bitter and irreparable. The arrival of the Arabian now infused new life into his soul.

Read the first passage aloud. Its long middle sentence sets the dungeon beside the free air. Then a short one follows: “This idea was torture to him.” What does the short sentence do that the long one could not?

For the educator Two passages, six sentences, both about what Felix could not bear. The first comes when the news of the arrest reaches him at Leghorn. Its middle sentence holds two places at once, joined by “while”: his “blind and aged father” and “gentle sister” in a “noisome dungeon”, and Felix in “the free air” with the woman he loves. Then the passage drops to six words: “This idea was torture to him.” The word is “idea”: Felix is not in the dungeon, and the torture is a thought. The second passage weighs his losses. Its middle sentence is an antithesis that turns on “but”. On one side is poverty, which he “could have endured” and even “gloried in” as “the meed of his virtue”. On the other are the ingratitude and the loss of Safie, “more bitter and irreparable”. The last sentence turns once more, to the arrival that “infused new life into his soul.” “The Turk” here is the teller’s name for one man; the guide calls him the merchant. The vocabulary words “noisome” and “meed” come from these sentences. For the talk prompt, listen for a student who hears the short sentence as a verdict after a long piece of evidence, and for one who hears it as Felix’s own voice breaking in on the teller’s. Both can be argued from the page.

Discussion

Narration Tell the history back, from the family’s life in Paris to Safie’s arrival at the cottage.

Felix turns down the merchant’s offer of a reward “with contempt”. Then he sees Safie, and he admits to himself that she would “fully reward his toil and hazard.” So what was Felix working for? Character
Safie’s mother taught her “an independence of spirit”. Yet when she is left behind at Leghorn, Safie “hesitated some time” before she set out. What was she weighing? Inference
In the middle of this history, the creature stops to tell Victor that he has copies of Safie’s letters. He says they “will prove the truth of my tale.” Why does he think his tale needs proof? Author's choice

Make a Connection Think of a story, or a time in history, when someone took a big risk to help a stranger. What came of it, for the helper and for the stranger?

Vocabulary

meed: He could have endured poverty, and while this distress had been the meed of his virtue, he gloried in it; but the ingratitude of the Turk and the loss of his beloved Safie were misfortunes more bitter and irreparable. A reward that has been earned; an old word, now found mostly in poetry. In the telling, Felix’s poverty is “the meed of his virtue”: the loss itself is the prize a good act has won, and so he can glory in it. The chapter is full of rewards: the one Felix refuses “with contempt”, the “treasure” he hopes for, and the “pittance” the merchant sends.
noisome: His blind and aged father and his gentle sister lay in a noisome dungeon while he enjoyed the free air and the society of her whom he loved. Foul and unhealthy, especially in smell; the word is related to annoy, not to noise. It names the dungeon where Felix’s blind father and his sister lie “while he enjoyed the free air”. The gap between the two places is what turns his pleasure into “torture”.
indelibly: This lady died, but her lessons were indelibly impressed on the mind of Safie, who sickened at the prospect of again returning to Asia and being immured within the walls of a harem, allowed only to occupy herself with infantile amusements, ill-suited to the temper of her soul, now accustomed to grand ideas and a noble emulation for virtue. In a way that cannot be rubbed out or washed away, like ink that stains for good (from a Latin word meaning not to be destroyed). Safie’s mother has died, but her lessons are indelibly impressed on Safie’s mind: the teacher is gone, and the teaching stays.
expostulate: The generous nature of Safie was outraged by this command; she attempted to expostulate with her father, but he left her angrily, reiterating his tyrannical mandate. To argue earnestly with someone to change their mind; to protest by reasoning rather than by force. Safie tries words before she acts. She attempts to expostulate with her father, and only after he leaves her “angrily” does she make a plan of her own.

Critical thinking

When the merchant leaves Italy, he sends Felix “a pittance of money”. He says it is to help Felix make a living. Why send anything at all?
Felix is at Leghorn, in “his dream of pleasure”, when he hears that his father and sister are in prison. How much of the family’s ruin is Felix’s to answer for?
Felix lost his fortune and his country to save a condemned man, and that man betrayed him. Should this history give the creature, a stranger hiding beside the family’s cottage, hope or fear?