Frankenstein

Chapter 18

Mary Shelley · Mountaineers 10th–12th

Teaching Companion Print Adapt for your student

Copywork

I was bound by a solemn promise which I had not yet fulfilled and dared not break, or if I did, what manifold miseries might not impend over me and my devoted family! Could I enter into a festival with this deadly weight yet hanging round my neck and bowing me to the ground? I must perform my engagement and let the monster depart with his mate before I allowed myself to enjoy the delight of a union from which I expected peace.

He was alive to every new scene, joyful when he saw the beauties of the setting sun, and more happy when he beheld it rise and recommence a new day. He pointed out to me the shifting colours of the landscape and the appearances of the sky.

Read both passages aloud. Listen to the last few words of each sentence. What do Victor’s sentences end on, and what do Henry’s?

For the educator Two passages, five sentences: Victor’s answer to himself after his father proposes an immediate wedding, and his first picture of Henry at Strasburgh. The first passage opens with a statement that breaks off into an exclamation: he is “bound by a solemn promise”, one he “had not yet fulfilled and dared not break”, two negatives that leave him nowhere to go, and then, “or if I did”, the sentence turns to “what manifold miseries”. The second sentence is a rhetorical question built on one image, a weight hanging round the neck and bowing him to the ground, and it calls the wedding a “festival”. The third plays on “engagement”: here it means the promise to the creature, not the betrothal, and it stands in the way of the “union” that is the marriage. The second passage is a list of three that climbs: “alive to every new scene”, “joyful” at the setting sun, “more happy” at its rising. Its second sentence turns outward to what Henry points out to Victor. A few lines later Victor says he “neither saw the descent of the evening star nor the golden sunrise”, which answers Henry’s sunset and sunrise point for point. The words manifold and impend are in the vocabulary. For the talk prompt, listen for a student who hears the endings. Victor’s three sentences end on “my devoted family”, on “the ground” and on a peace he only “expected”: the people he fears for, the weight that bows him, and a peace put off. Henry’s end on “a new day” and on “the sky”. One passage bows down and waits; the other looks up and begins.

Discussion

Narration Tell the chapter back in your own words, from the weeks of delay in Geneva to the first sight of London.

His father guesses that Victor’s trouble is about his marriage to Elizabeth. Every word of Victor’s reply is true. Did he lie to his father? Character
When the chapter opens, Victor looks for every excuse to delay the work he promised the creature. It even starts to seem less urgent. Then his father talks with him, hoping to cheer him. Soon Victor is set on going to England to do the work. What in that talk ends the delay? Plot structure
Victor promises himself one reward for his work. On his wedding day he will “claim Elizabeth and forget the past”. What is he asking the marriage to do? Theme
Just before Elizabeth’s silent goodbye, Victor says that a man “is blind to a thousand minute circumstances” that a woman notices. What is Victor blind to as he leaves? Character
On the Rhine, at the time of the grape harvest, Victor lies in the bottom of the boat. He tells us that “even I was pleased.” What lets the pleasure in? Inference

Make a Connection Think of a story, a piece of history, or a moment from your own life when someone kept a hard secret from the people closest to them. What came of it?

Vocabulary

manifold: I was bound by a solemn promise which I had not yet fulfilled and dared not break, or if I did, what manifold miseries might not impend over me and my devoted family! Many and of many kinds (literally, many-fold). Victor does not say what the miseries would be. He says only that there would be many, of every sort, and that they would fall on “my devoted family”. The word makes the danger large and shapeless at once, which is how fear works when it cannot be spoken.
impend: I was bound by a solemn promise which I had not yet fulfilled and dared not break, or if I did, what manifold miseries might not impend over me and my devoted family! To hang over, threatening to fall (from Latin, to hang over). Something that impends has not happened yet but seems about to. Victor pictures the miseries hanging over his family the way the “deadly weight” in the next sentence hangs round his neck. The miseries hang over him and his family and have not yet fallen; the weight already hangs on him.
exordium: Reserve on such a point would be not only useless, but draw down treble misery on us all.” I trembled violently at his exordium, and my father continued— “I confess, my son, that I have always looked forward to your marriage with our dear Elizabeth as the tie of our domestic comfort and the stay of my declining years. The opening part of a speech, which prepares the listener for what is coming (a term from the art of oratory). Victor gives his father’s first words a formal name, as if they were the start of an oration. He trembles at the opening alone, before he knows what his father has guessed.
candour: Interpret my words with candour and answer me, I conjure you, with confidence and sincerity. Openness and fairness of mind; in older English, also a kind and generous reading of what someone says (from Latin, whiteness or brightness). The father asks Victor to read his words “with candour”, kindly and without suspicion, and to answer “with confidence and sincerity”. He asks to be read fairly and answered openly, and the chapter turns on the answer he gets.
enfranchised: For myself, there was one reward I promised myself from my detested toils—one consolation for my unparalleled sufferings; it was the prospect of that day when, enfranchised from my miserable slavery, I might claim Elizabeth and forget the past in my union with her. Set free, as a slave is freed; given the rights of a free person. Victor uses it of the day his work will be done, “enfranchised from my miserable slavery”. The word keeps up the picture of himself as the creature’s slave, and makes the wedding his day of freedom.
sedulous: It had been her care which provided me a companion in Clerval—and yet a man is blind to a thousand minute circumstances which call forth a woman’s sedulous attention. Careful, steady and attentive; taking pains over small things (from Latin, busy or diligent). Victor sets a woman’s “sedulous attention” against a man’s blindness, in the sentence about Elizabeth’s care in finding him a companion.

Critical thinking

Three times in this chapter, Victor calls himself the creature’s slave. Yet he made the promise himself. Is “slave” the right word for him?
Halfway down the Rhine, the story stops. The older Victor, who is telling it, cries out, “And where does he now exist?” Then he begs pardon and goes on. Why does Shelley let his grief break in here, of all places?
Victor’s father begs him to answer “with confidence and sincerity”. Victor tells no one of his promise to the creature. Does that silence keep his family safe, or leave them in danger?