Chapter 16

Frankenstein

Mountaineers · 10th–12th

Copywork

This was then the reward of my benevolence! I had saved a human being from destruction, and as a recompense I now writhed under the miserable pain of a wound which shattered the flesh and bone. The feelings of kindness and gentleness which I had entertained but a few moments before gave place to hellish rage and gnashing of teeth.

In spite of my malignity, it softened and attracted me. For a few moments I gazed with delight on her dark eyes, fringed by deep lashes, and her lovely lips; but presently my rage returned; I remembered that I was for ever deprived of the delights that such beautiful creatures could bestow and that she whose resemblance I contemplated would, in regarding me, have changed that air of divine benignity to one expressive of disgust and affright.

Read the two passages aloud. Find the place in each where the feeling turns. What makes one turn land harder than the other?

For the educator Two passages, five sentences: the cry after the shot at the river, and the portrait found on the dead boy. The first opens on an exclamation, “This was then the reward of my benevolence!” The sentence after it sets a deed against its return: he “had saved a human being from destruction”, and “as a recompense” he writhed under a wound. Recompense is a word for payment, and the payment is a gunshot wound. The third sentence puts a long subject first, “The feelings of kindness and gentleness which I had entertained but a few moments before”, so the turn arrives with the short verb “gave place to”. It then ends on a second pair of nouns, “hellish rage and gnashing of teeth”, set against the first pair. The second passage opens on a concession, “In spite of my malignity”, before its main clause. The long sentence after it moves in three parts joined by semicolons: the delight in her face, given in detail; the turn, “but presently my rage returned”, short and at the centre; and the reason, which ends on another pair, “disgust and affright”. Malignity and benignity share a form and mean opposite things: he names his own malignity, and imagines her benignity turning to disgust. The words benevolence and malignity are in the vocabulary. For the talk prompt, listen for a student who hears the river turn as harder because a gun causes it, and one who hears the portrait turn as harder because nothing outside him causes it at all. Both can be argued from the page.

Discussion

Narration Tell the chapter back in your own words, from his night of rage in the wood to the being he tells Victor he must create.

1. On the night after the attack, he swears war on the whole human race. Later, at the empty cottage, he says revenge and hatred fill him “For the first time”. How can it be the first time?Character

2. One spring morning on his way to Geneva, he “dared to be happy”. Why would being happy take daring?Character

3. He pulls a girl from the river. A man tears her from his arms and runs into the wood. The creature follows, “I hardly knew why”. What might he have wanted from them?Character

4. He hopes the boy is too young to have learned “a horror of deformity”. Where does the boy’s horror come from?Theme

5. He looks at the dead boy and feels triumph. Then he finds a portrait on the boy, and for a few moments it softens him. Why does the picture soften him when the dead boy does not?Character

6. He asks Victor for a companion “as deformed and horrible as myself”. Why ask for the defects too?Character

Make a Connection Think of a story, or a time you know of, when someone did a kind thing and was punished for it. What did that person do with the hurt?

Vocabulary

benevolence This was then the reward of my benevolence!

malignity In spite of my malignity, it softened and attracted me.

glutted I could with pleasure have destroyed the cottage and its inhabitants and have glutted myself with their shrieks and misery.

impotence But this was a luxury of sensation that could not endure; I became fatigued with excess of bodily exertion and sank on the damp grass in the sick impotence of despair.

imprecate Oh, earth! How often did I imprecate curses on the cause of my being!

succour From you only could I hope for succour, although towards you I felt no sentiment but that of hatred.

epithets The child still struggled and loaded me with epithets which carried despair to my heart; I grasped his throat to silence him, and in a moment he lay dead at my feet.

sanguinary Thanks to the lessons of Felix and the sanguinary laws of man, I had learned now to work mischief.

Critical thinking

1. He tells the boy, “you shall be my first victim.” The boy keeps calling him names, and he takes him by the throat to quiet him. When, if ever, did he decide to kill?

Thesis

Objection

Revision

2. Over the boy’s body he cries, “I too can create desolation”. The last words of the chapter are “This being you must create.” What has the word create come to mean to him?

Thesis

Objection

Revision

3. The creature says he learned “to work mischief” from “the lessons of Felix and the sanguinary laws of man”. Did people teach him the harm he does, or does he choose it?

Thesis

Objection

Revision