Frankenstein

Chapter 15

Mary Shelley · Mountaineers 10th–12th

Teaching Companion Print Adapt for your student

Copywork

I had sagacity enough to discover that the unnatural hideousness of my person was the chief object of horror with those who had formerly beheld me. My voice, although harsh, had nothing terrible in it; I thought, therefore, that if in the absence of his children I could gain the good will and mediation of the old De Lacey, I might by his means be tolerated by my younger protectors.

If you will unreservedly confide to me the particulars of your tale, I perhaps may be of use in undeceiving them. I am blind and cannot judge of your countenance, but there is something in your words which persuades me that you are sincere. I am poor and an exile, but it will afford me true pleasure to be in any way serviceable to a human creature.

Read the two passages aloud, one after the other. How well does the creature’s plan foresee what the old man says?

For the educator Two passages, five sentences: the creature’s plan for the meeting, and the blind man’s answer when the plan is put to work. The first is reasoning in two steps. He has “sagacity enough” to see that his face, “the unnatural hideousness of my person”, caused the horror he met. Then a long conditional sentence builds on it, with a concession (“although harsh”), a hinge word set off by commas (“therefore”) and an “if” that holds its result back to the end: “I might by his means be tolerated”. Note how small that hope is: tolerated, not loved. The second passage is De Lacey’s offer by his own fire, when the plan is put to work. Two of its sentences open “I am” and turn on “but”: “I am blind” and “I am poor and an exile”. Each names a loss and sets it aside to give. The plan bets that a voice can win what a face cannot, and the old man’s middle sentence seems to pay the bet; the first sentence, though, asks him to confide “unreservedly”, and that is more than the plan meant to give. The words sagacity and unreservedly are in the vocabulary. For the talk prompt, listen for a student who hears the plan working exactly, and for one who notices what De Lacey asks that the plan did not foresee. Both can be argued from the page.

Discussion

Narration Tell the chapter back in your own words, from the leather case he finds in the wood to his escape to the hovel.

He guesses that “a young soldier, burning for glory and slaughter” would have made him different. If he is right, how much of who he is was ever his to choose? Theme
He loves the cottagers. Yet when he watches their happiness, “the bitter gall of envy” rises in him. What does that envy want? Character
He calls his body an ugly copy of Victor’s, “more horrid even from the very resemblance.” Why would looking like a man make him more horrid, not less? Character
When De Lacey asks for the friends’ names, the creature cannot answer and sobs aloud. Why does the moment he planned for so long undo him? Character
De Lacey says the hearts of men are “full of brotherly love and charity” unless self-interest gets in the way. What gets in the way when the family comes home? Moral reasoning

Make a Connection Think of a story, or a time you know of, when someone was known only by their words at first, in letters, on the phone or in the dark. What happened when they were finally seen?

Vocabulary

benevolence: As yet I looked upon crime as a distant evil, benevolence and generosity were ever present before me, inciting within me a desire to become an actor in the busy scene where so many admirable qualities were called forth and displayed. The wish to do good to others, and the kindness that comes from it (from Latin words for wishing well). From the cottage and the history of the family he learns to see benevolence as “ever present”, and crime as “a distant evil”. He hopes to become “an actor” in a world full of it. The chapter tests how far that benevolence reaches.
imbued: The patriarchal lives of my protectors caused these impressions to take a firm hold on my mind; perhaps, if my first introduction to humanity had been made by a young soldier, burning for glory and slaughter, I should have been imbued with different sensations. Filled through and through, as cloth soaks up a dye. The creature guesses that a soldier would have imbued him with different feelings. The word treats his feelings as something put into him by his first teachers, not something he was born with.
abhorred: Satan had his companions, fellow devils, to admire and encourage him, but I am solitary and abhorred. Hated with disgust; looked on with horror and shrunk from. The word holds a pulling away: those who abhor something turn from it. The creature sets “solitary and abhorred” against Satan, who at least had “companions”, and so ranks his own state below the devil’s.
sagacity: I had sagacity enough to discover that the unnatural hideousness of my person was the chief object of horror with those who had formerly beheld me. Keen practical judgment; the wisdom to see how things really are and act on it. The creature waits months so that time may add to his sagacity, and it is sagacity that tells him his face, not his voice, is the problem. The plan to meet the blind man alone is the fruit of that judgment.
unreservedly: If you will unreservedly confide to me the particulars of your tale, I perhaps may be of use in undeceiving them. Fully and openly, holding nothing back. A reservation is something kept back. De Lacey asks the stranger to confide unreservedly, even as the stranger keeps back the one fact that matters: who his friends are.
consternation: Who can describe their horror and consternation on beholding me? Sudden alarm and confusion that leaves people unable to think what to do. It is stronger than surprise and less steady than fear. The creature pairs it with “horror” for the moment Felix, Agatha and Safie see him, and their three reactions, a faint, a flight and a blow, show it.

Critical thinking

He waits until the blind man is alone. He keeps back who his friends are until the very end. How fair is that to De Lacey?
Felix beats him with a stick. He tells Victor he could have torn Felix “limb from limb, as the lion rends the antelope.” Why does he want Victor to know that?
De Lacey cannot see the creature, so he judges him by his words. Felix, Agatha and Safie judge him by his looks, and they are horrified. Who sees him more truly?