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Frankenstein
Mountaineers · 10th–12th
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?
The tension His father warns that “Reserve on such a point would be not only useless, but draw down treble misery on us all” and guesses wrongly that the gloom concerns Elizabeth; Victor answers the wrong guess, then asks to visit England, “concealing the true reasons of this request” under “a guise which excited no suspicion”.
A secret carried out of Geneva: what Victor tells his father, what he hides, and how Clerval’s delight on the Rhine sets off his gloom.
Back in Geneva, Victor lets weeks pass without starting the female being. He fears the creature’s revenge but cannot face the work, and he needs knowledge from an English philosopher. His health and spirits recover, though his gloom returns in fits, and he spends whole days alone in a boat on the lake. His father, glad of the change, calls him aside and guesses that his gloom concerns Elizabeth: perhaps he sees her as a sister, or loves someone else. Victor assures him that he loves Elizabeth and hopes to marry her. His father proposes an immediate wedding. Victor is silent; the promise to the creature makes the idea a horror to him, and he decides he must do the work first, and away from home, where a slip could not reveal it to his family. He asks to visit England, hiding his true reasons, and his father gladly agrees, hoping travel will restore him. Without telling Victor, his father and Elizabeth arrange for Henry Clerval to join him at Strasburgh. It is agreed that the wedding will take place as soon as he returns, and Victor looks to it as the reward for his labour. He fears for his family while he is away, but trusts that the creature will follow him. At the end of September he leaves; Elizabeth bids him a tearful, silent farewell. He travels to Strasburgh seeing nothing, and there meets Henry, whose delight in every scene contrasts with his gloom. They go down the Rhine by boat, past castles and vineyards at the time of the harvest, and even Victor feels a moment’s peace. Henry speaks with joy of the river. Victor, telling the story later, breaks off to praise Henry and mourn him, then begs pardon and goes on. They cross Holland, sail to England, and come up the Thames until they see the steeples of London.
Before reading, ask when it is kinder to keep something from the people you love, and when it is only easier. Then read the chapter twice over, once for what Victor says aloud and once for what he keeps back. Mark each place where someone asks him something or tries to help him, and note what he gives in return. On the Rhine, mark what Henry sees and what Victor sees. Stop at the break in the telling and read it slowly. Bring in nothing about what happens in England: the chapter ends on Victor’s first sight of London.
Retell The student retells the chapter in five movements: the weeks of delay and the days on the lake; the talk with his father and the wrong guess; the reasons for England and the plan for Henry; the farewell and the road to Strasburgh; the Rhine, the break in the telling, and the way to London. At each, look for what Victor says aloud and what he keeps to himself.
Imitate the author After copying, the student writes two sentences of their own. The first is a question built on one image of a burden, as “Could I enter into a festival with this deadly weight yet hanging round my neck” is. The second describes someone in a list of three that climbs, as “alive to every new scene, joyful … and more happy” does, each step a little stronger than the one before.
Debate Take sides on the last written question. One side argues that Victor’s silence keeps his family safe and gathers the horror the truth would bring, the creature’s promise to follow him, and the work taken far from home. The other side argues that it leaves them in danger and gathers his own words about friends left “unprotected from his attacks”, the “impulses of the moment” he obeyed, and his father’s warning about reserve. Each side must answer the other’s best line, and neither may say what happens next.
Purpose Close on two sentences: the father’s plea, “answer me, I conjure you, with confidence and sincerity”, and Victor’s own account of his reply, “concealing the true reasons of this request”. Ask why Shelley lets Victor tell us plainly that he deceived his father, and what it does to the reader to know what the father does not.
Easier Read aloud the father’s two speeches, Victor’s reasons for going to England, the farewell, and the meeting with Henry at Strasburgh. Make two lists, what Victor tells his family and what he keeps from them, and mark beside each one who is protected by it. Talk through the first, second and fourth discussion questions, then answer the last written question aloud before writing it.
On level Talk through all five 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 treats the chapter as a study in concealment: the reply about Elizabeth, the guise of the England request, the plan for Henry made without Victor, and Elizabeth’s silence. Then ask the student to read the Rhine pages as a measure: how Henry’s open joy, and the grief that breaks into the telling, show what Victor’s secret costs him.
1. 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
What it asks It asks the student to judge a true answer to the wrong question. The father says that an idea has struck him and conjures Victor to “avow it” if it is well founded. Victor trembles “violently” as his father begins. The guess turns out to be Elizabeth: perhaps Victor sees her as a sister, or loves someone else. Victor answers that he loves her “tenderly and sincerely” and that his hopes are “entirely bound up” in their union. Nothing he says is false, and his father is more pleased than he has been for some time. The student decides whether an answer can be true in every word and still be a lie. The card should keep to this first reply; the England request, where the chapter itself says “concealing”, comes after it.
No. His father asked about Elizabeth, and Victor told him the truth about Elizabeth. He loves her, and he means to marry her. The cause his father guessed was not “well founded”, so there was nothing on that point to avow. What Victor keeps back is a different matter, and his father never asked about it.
My dear father, reassure yourself. I love my cousin tenderly and sincerely.
My future hopes and prospects are entirely bound up in the expectation of our union.
Yes, in effect. His father wanted the cause of the gloom. Victor clears away the wrong cause and offers nothing in its place, so his father puts the gloom down to “present events”. He trembles at the opening, before he knows what the guess will be, so he fears a right guess and is relieved by a wrong one. The father leaves happier than he came, and no nearer the truth.
I trembled violently at his exordium, and my father continued
we shall assuredly be happy, however present events may cast a gloom over us.
A strong answer A strong response takes a side on the word “lie” and grounds it. One reader says no: the father asked about Elizabeth, and Victor told the truth about Elizabeth, so there was nothing on that point to avow. Another says yes, in effect: Victor “trembled violently” before the guess was named, then let a wrong one fall and offered nothing in its place, so his father puts the gloom down to “present events”. The best answers ask whether honesty is a matter of each word or of what the listener is left believing.
2. 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
What it asks It asks the student to find the turn in the first half of the chapter. For weeks Victor “clung to every pretence of delay”, and the task’s “immediate necessity began to appear less absolute”. His health comes back, and his spirits rise when “unchecked by the memory of my unhappy promise”. His father, glad of the change, wants to clear away the gloom that is left. He guesses at Elizabeth, then proposes “an immediate solemnisation of the marriage”. Victor sits in silence, and then: “These feelings dictated my answer to my father.” The answer is the request to visit England. The student decides what in the talk ends the delay. The card must not say that Victor begins or finishes the work: the chapter ends on his first sight of London.
The offer of the wedding. While the wedding was far off, the promise could wait. Once his father asks for it now, the promise stands between Victor and Elizabeth. He cannot “enter into a festival” with the weight round his neck, so the work must come first. The father offers the reward, and the reward makes the task urgent again.
To me the idea of an immediate union with my Elizabeth was one of horror and dismay.
I must perform my engagement and let the monster depart with his mate before I allowed myself to enjoy the delight of a union
Nothing new; the talk only forces an answer. The reasons were there before it: the fear of the fiend’s vengeance, the English philosopher, even the thought of asking leave to go. What the talk does is ask for a reply. A son asked to marry at once must say something, and England is the reply that hides the rest.
I sometimes thought of obtaining my father’s consent to visit England for this purpose;
These feelings dictated my answer to my father.
A strong answer A strong response names what in the talk ends the delay and grounds it. One reader says the wedding: once his father asks for it now, the promise stands between Victor and Elizabeth, and the reward makes the task urgent again. Another says the talk only forces an answer: England was already in his mind, and it is the reply that hides the rest. The best answers notice that the task had begun to seem “less absolute” before the talk, and that the father’s wish to cure the gloom sends his son toward its cause.
3. 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
What it asks It asks the student to look hard at the hope Victor holds out to himself. Near the end of the Geneva pages he calls the wedding “one reward I promised myself from my detested toils”, and “one consolation for my unparalleled sufferings”. On that day, “enfranchised from my miserable slavery”, he might “claim Elizabeth and forget the past in my union with her.” Earlier he called it “a union from which I expected peace”. The student decides what he wants the marriage to carry. The card should not reduce Elizabeth to a prize: in this same chapter she acts on her own, arranging Henry’s company with Victor’s father.
To give him peace and a fresh start. The marriage is the one bright thing ahead of the task, the “consolation” for all he suffers. His father says they were attached “from your earliest infancy”, and Victor says he loves her “tenderly and sincerely”. To forget the past is to be well again, and he wants the marriage to be where that happens.
enjoy the delight of a union from which I expected peace.
one consolation for my unparalleled sufferings;
To bury the secret. The marriage is pay for “detested toils”, and “claim” is a word for wages or property. To “forget the past” in the union is to bring the promise into the marriage untold. Elizabeth would marry a man whose past she has never been allowed to know.
there was one reward I promised myself from my detested toils
I might claim Elizabeth and forget the past in my union with her.
A strong answer A strong response names what he wants from the marriage and grounds it. One reader says peace and a fresh start: it is “one consolation” for his sufferings, a union “from which I expected peace”. Another says a place to bury the secret: the wedding is pay for “detested toils”, and to “forget the past” in it is to bring the promise into the marriage untold. The best answers notice “claim”, and notice that Elizabeth in this chapter is more than a reward: she plans and acts on her own.
4. 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
What it asks It asks the student to turn Victor’s own saying back on him. In the paragraph of the parting, he writes that it was Elizabeth’s “care” which found him a companion in Henry, “and yet a man is blind to a thousand minute circumstances which call forth a woman’s sedulous attention.” Then she longs to ask him to hurry home, and “a thousand conflicting emotions” leave her mute. The student decides what Victor fails to see as he goes. The card should keep Elizabeth as someone who sees and acts, not only as someone left behind. It must not say that she knows or suspects the truth, or that harm comes to anyone at home: the chapter gives neither.
His own need. Victor wanted to be alone: Henry’s coming “interfered with the solitude I coveted”. Elizabeth saw that he needed a friend, and arranged it with his father without asking him. The saying is his thanks, given late: she saw to a want he could not see in himself.
It had been her care which provided me a companion in Clerval
This interfered with the solitude I coveted for the prosecution of my task;
Elizabeth herself. He can report that she is “filled with disquiet” and that she longs to speak, but what she feels he can only count: “a thousand conflicting emotions”, the same number he gives to a man’s blindness. He sees her weep and does not know what she would have said, and she does not know what he carries. Each leaves the other unread.
but she was filled with disquiet at the idea of my suffering, away from her, the inroads of misery and grief.
She longed to bid me hasten my return; a thousand conflicting emotions rendered her mute as she bade me a tearful, silent farewell.
A strong answer A strong response names something Victor cannot see and grounds it in the paragraph. One reader says he is blind to his own need: he “coveted” solitude, and it was Elizabeth’s “care” that saw he needed a friend. Another says he is blind to Elizabeth: her “thousand conflicting emotions” stand where his knowledge of her should be, and the two part with neither saying what they most want to say. The best answers hear the two “thousand”s side by side, and keep Elizabeth as someone who sees and acts, without saying she guesses his secret.
5. 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
What it asks It asks the student to account for the one stretch of the journey that Victor enjoys. On the road to Strasburgh his eyes were “fixed and unobserving”. With Henry he “neither saw the descent of the evening star nor the golden sunrise”. Then, below Mainz, at vintage time, he hears “the song of the labourers”, gazes at “the cloudless blue sky”, and seems “to drink in a tranquillity to which I had long been a stranger.” The student decides what makes the difference. The card should leave the pleasure brief: the chapter calls Victor “depressed in mind” in the same sentence.
The place and the company. Henry is beside him, pointing at castles and vineyards, happy enough for two. The work going on around them is a harvest, and the workers sing at it, far from his “detested toils”. For once the world around him is too full of life to shut out.
We travelled at the time of the vintage and heard the song of the labourers as we glided down the stream.
And if these were my sensations, who can describe those of Henry?
The same thing that helped at home. In Geneva, alone in a little boat watching the clouds, the fresh air and sun “seldom failed” to calm him. On the Rhine he is again lying still in a boat, looking up at the sky, and asked for nothing. The pleasure comes when he stops looking at anything that needs an answer.
I passed whole days on the lake alone in a little boat, watching the clouds and listening to the rippling of the waves, silent and listless.
I lay at the bottom of the boat, and as I gazed on the cloudless blue sky, I seemed to drink in a tranquillity to which I had long been a stranger.
A strong answer A strong response gives a cause for the pleasure and grounds it. One reader says it is Henry and the harvest: a friend happy enough for two, and workers singing at their work. Another says it is the same cure as the lake at Geneva: lying still in a boat, watching the sky, asked for nothing. The best answers notice that he says “even I” twice, and notice how quickly “depressed in mind” follows in the same sentence.
1. 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?
What it asks It asks the student to judge a word Victor chooses for himself. He hopes an accident might “put an end to my slavery for ever”, which he calls his “fond fancy”. He looks forward to the day when, “enfranchised from my miserable slavery”, he can marry. Looking back, he speaks of “the whole period during which I was the slave of my creature”. Yet the chapter is full of his choices: he delays, he answers his father, he hides his reasons, he asks to go to England. The student builds a thesis on whether the word fits, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not say whether he begins or finishes the work: the chapter ends on his first sight of London.
It fits. A slave obeys out of fear of what the master will do, and Victor fears exactly that: “the vengeance of the disappointed fiend”, and “manifold miseries” on his family if he breaks his word. He cannot marry, cannot work at home and cannot speak. His only hope of freedom is an accident, which is how a slave might hope.
I feared the vengeance of the disappointed fiend,
I was bound by a solemn promise which I had not yet fulfilled and dared not break,
It does not fit. A slave has no choice, and Victor makes choice after choice: to delay, to keep silent, to go abroad. The word lays the weight on the creature and lifts it off Victor. The same sentence that calls him “the slave of my creature” admits that he let himself be ruled by “the impulses of the moment”. That is a man who chose his master.
But through the whole period during which I was the slave of my creature I allowed myself to be governed by the impulses of the moment;
but I clung to every pretence of delay and shrank from taking the first step
A strong answer A strong thesis takes a position on the word and argues it. A student might argue that it fits: Victor acts in fear of “the vengeance of the disappointed fiend”, cannot marry or speak, and can only dream of an accident to free him. The strongest objection is Victor’s own sentence, which calls him “the slave of my creature” and in the same breath admits “I allowed myself to be governed by the impulses of the moment”. A good revision might say he is bound by fear but free in how he answers it, and ask whether “slave” is how a man describes a burden he chose.
2. 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?
What it asks It asks the student to account for a break in the telling. On the Rhine, Henry praises the river above all the wonders of Switzerland. Victor, telling the story later, stops to praise him: “Clerval! Beloved friend!” He calls him “formed in the ‘very poetry of nature’” and quotes lines from Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” about a love of nature that needed nothing “By thought supplied”. Then comes the cry, “And where does he now exist?”, and the line “your form so divinely wrought … has decayed”. He asks pardon for “this gush of sorrow” and goes back to the journey. The student builds a thesis on why the grief breaks in at this point, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not say how or when Henry was lost, or who is to blame; the chapter gives only the mourning.
Shelley sets it at the height of Henry’s joy, so the loss is measured against him at his fullest. Henry is all delight on the river, a man who loved what he saw with nothing “By thought supplied”, while Victor saw neither the evening star nor the sunrise. The lament makes the reader feel that open, undivided life as something already gone. It also shows the reader what Victor lacked even while Henry was beside him.
Clerval! Beloved friend! Even now it delights me to record your words and to dwell on the praise of which you are so eminently deserving.
And where does he now exist? Is this gentle and lovely being lost for ever?
It is less a choice of place than a sign of the teller. The story is told by a man who cannot keep his grief out of it. He begs pardon, says the words “soothe my heart”, and goes on. The reader learns to hear every page through that grief. The break warns that this is a story told by someone still inside it.
Pardon this gush of sorrow; these ineffectual words are but a slight tribute to the unexampled worth of Henry, but they soothe my heart,
I will proceed with my tale.
A strong answer A strong thesis gives the break a purpose and argues it. A student might argue that Shelley sets the lament at the height of Henry’s joy, so his open delight, “This is what it is to live”, becomes the measure of what Victor lacked then and has lost since. The strongest objection is that the break is the teller’s, not a plan: he begs pardon, says the words “soothe my heart”, and goes on as a man who cannot help it. A good revision might hold both, saying that the author uses a teller who cannot keep his grief out of the story, and that the reader is meant to hear the journey through it.
3. 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?
What it asks It asks the chapter’s whole question. The father asks his son to speak, and warns that “Reserve on such a point would be not only useless, but draw down treble misery on us all.” Victor answers the wrong guess about Elizabeth, then asks to visit England, “concealing the true reasons of this request” under “a guise which excited no suspicion”. His reasons for silence and distance are on the page: a slip at home “would disclose a tale to thrill all connected with me with horror”, and the creature “had promised to follow me”. So is his own doubt: he leaves his friends “unconscious of the existence of their enemy and unprotected from his attacks”. The student builds a thesis on whether the silence keeps his family safe or leaves them in danger, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not say whether the father’s warning comes true, or whether the creature follows Victor or harms the family; the chapter gives only Victor’s fear and his hope.
It keeps them safe, as far as Victor can see. The truth would fill them with horror and change nothing they could do. The creature promised to follow Victor wherever he went. Taking the work and the secret far away takes the danger with them. Silence spares the family the horror, and distance spares them the creature.
I knew that a thousand fearful accidents might occur, the slightest of which would disclose a tale to thrill all connected with me with horror.
But he had promised to follow me wherever I might go, and would he not accompany me to England?
It leaves them in danger. Victor says so himself: his friends will not know their enemy exists and will have no defence against him. His hope that the fiend will follow him rests, he admits, on “the impulses of the moment”. His father warned that reserve would bring “treble misery on us all”. A family that does not know of a danger cannot guard against it.
During my absence I should leave my friends unconscious of the existence of their enemy and unprotected from his attacks, exasperated as he might be by my departure.
Reserve on such a point would be not only useless, but draw down treble misery on us all.
A strong answer A strong thesis takes a side and earns it. A student might argue that the silence protects them: the truth would “thrill all connected with me with horror”, and the creature “had promised to follow me wherever I might go”, so the secret and the danger leave together. The strongest objection is Victor’s own admission that he leaves his friends “unconscious of the existence of their enemy and unprotected from his attacks”, and that his hope rests on “the impulses of the moment”. A good revision might ask whom the silence protects most, the family from the danger or Victor from their horror, and leave open what the chapter leaves open.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.