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Frankenstein
Mountaineers · 10th–12th
Victor’s mother and father raised him knowing what they owed to the life they had given him. So why does he treat Elizabeth, the girl handed to him, as “a possession of my own”?
The tension His mother and father hold the infant Victor as “the innocent and helpless creature” that Heaven bestowed on them, whose happiness or misery depends on how they meet “their duties towards me”; Victor, at five, takes Elizabeth, promised to him as “a pretty present”, as “mine to protect, love, and cherish”, and hears every praise of her as praise of “a possession of my own”.
The chain of rescues that builds this family, from Beaufort’s coffin to the cottage at Como, and what each rescue passes on.
Victor begins with his father, a respected public man of Geneva who married late. The father searched ten months for his ruined friend Beaufort and reached Lucerne to find him dead and his daughter Caroline weeping by the coffin; he took her to Geneva and married her two years later. He gave up public life to shelter her, and their son Victor, born at Naples, grew up adored and gently guided. Near the Lake of Como, Caroline took a fair orphan, Elizabeth Lavenza, from a poor cottage and gave her to five-year-old Victor as a promised present, which he took literally.
Start with the two girls the chapter calls “an orphan and a beggar”: Caroline at Beaufort’s death and Elizabeth after her father’s ruin. Ask who took each one in, and what became of her next.
Retell The student retells the chapter in sequence: the father’s public life, the search for Beaufort, the rescue and the marriage, Victor’s infancy, the cottage at Como and the gift of Elizabeth. Then the student names the sentence the chapter turns on and defends the choice in a sentence or two.
Imitate the author After copying the passage, the student writes two sentences in Shelley’s style about a person they admire: one that sets a love apart from a lesser kind, as “differing wholly from” does, and one that pictures that love through a single comparison, as the gardener’s does.
Debate Take sides on the closing question. One side argues that Victor’s claim on Elizabeth grows out of the home that raised him; the other, that it breaks from what that home taught. Each side quotes the chapter’s language of duty or of keeping and answers the other side’s strongest line.
Purpose Close on why it matters: the student practices the judgment of weighing a grown narrator’s words, tender and possessive at once, before deciding what he believes.
Easier Read the Lucerne paragraphs and the cottage scene aloud together, and talk through discussion questions 1 and 5 only. The student then states a one-sentence thesis on the closing question and backs it with one quote from the last paragraph.
On level Talk through all six discussion questions; the student then writes the closing critical-thinking question in full, with a thesis, an objection and a revision.
Harder The student writes all three critical-thinking pieces and, for the last, gathers every word the chapter uses for a loved one kept or given (“plaything”, “idol”, “a fair exotic”, “a pretty present”, “possession”) to argue which of them the ending answers.
1. Beaufort paid his debts “in the most honourable manner”, then hid in Lucerne while his daughter plaited straw to keep them alive. Victor’s father calls it “false pride”. Where does honour end and false pride begin?Moral reasoning
What it asks It asks the student to test Beaufort’s choice against what it cost the daughter who depended on him, and to say where honour turns into pride.
It was honour that went wrong: Beaufort paid every debt and hoped to earn his keep, and grief and sickness, not pride alone, ruined him.
Having paid his debts, therefore, in the most honourable manner, he retreated with his daughter to the town of Lucerne, where he lived unknown and in wretchedness.
in the meantime he hoped to procure some respectable employment in a merchant’s house
It was false pride from the start: he hid from the friend who would have helped him, and his daughter paid for it.
He bitterly deplored the false pride which led his friend to a conduct so little worthy of the affection that united them.
Beaufort had taken effectual measures to conceal himself
She procured plain work; she plaited straw and by various means contrived to earn a pittance scarcely sufficient to support life.
A strong answer A strong answer might say that honour ends where it stops serving the people who depend on you. Beaufort pays his debts “in the most honourable manner”, but he hides so well that his friend needs ten months to find him, and meanwhile his daughter plaits straw while his grief keeps him idle. Another reader can defend him: he hoped for “respectable employment”, and it was grief and sickness that undid him. The chapter’s judge is Victor’s father, who finds the pride “so little worthy of the affection that united them”; the best answers say whether that verdict is fair, and to whom Beaufort owed the most.
2. In Lucerne, Caroline showed “a mind of an uncommon mould” and worked to support her dying father. Now her husband shelters her as a gardener shelters “a fair exotic”, “from every rougher wind”. How well does that picture fit her?Author's choice
What it asks It asks whether the gardener’s picture honours a woman shaken by suffering or shrinks the courage the chapter has just shown.
It fits: her suffering has shaken her, and shelter is what she needs and what her husband feels he owes her.
Her health, and even the tranquillity of her hitherto constant spirit, had been shaken by what she had gone through.
a desire to be the means of, in some degree, recompensing her for the sorrows she had endured
It fits poorly: the woman who kept her father by her own work is now kept like something delicate.
But Caroline Beaufort possessed a mind of an uncommon mould, and her courage rose to support her in her adversity.
She procured plain work; she plaited straw
A strong answer A strong answer holds both halves. The chapter has just shown Caroline’s courage: she “plaited straw” and nursed her father to the end, so a delicate plant kept from “every rougher wind” can seem to forget her. Yet the same paragraph says her health and “constant spirit” had been shaken, and that her husband longed to make up for “the sorrows she had endured”, so the shelter answers a real wound. A careful reader may add that the picture says as much about the gardener as about the plant: this man loves by keeping and protecting.
3. Looking back, Victor first calls himself “their plaything and their idol”. Only then does he reach the better name, “the innocent and helpless creature” given them by Heaven. Why might he keep the first two names at all?Inference
What it asks It asks why a grown narrator keeps two words that make a person something to play with and to worship, beside the name that speaks of duty.
He keeps them out of honest fondness: they say how lavishly he was loved, and the better name does not cancel that love.
they seemed to draw inexhaustible stores of affection from a very mine of love to bestow them upon me
I was so guided by a silken cord that all seemed but one train of enjoyment to me.
He keeps them because they are true to how this household loves: it treasures and adores the people it keeps, even while it speaks of duty.
I was their plaything and their idol
The passionate and almost reverential attachment with which all regarded her became, while I shared it, my pride and my delight.
A strong answer A strong answer notices that the sentence ranks its names instead of replacing them. A plaything is enjoyed and an idol is worshipped; only the third name, “the innocent and helpless creature”, comes with “their duties towards me”. One reading says Victor keeps the first two out of honest fondness, to show how much he was loved. Another says the words are true to a household that loves by treasuring, which matters once the same household gives him Elizabeth. The best answers say which reading the rest of the paragraph supports.
4. For Victor’s mother, visiting the poor was “more than a duty; it was a necessity”, because she remembered her own suffering and rescue. What changes when a duty becomes a need?Theme
What it asks It asks whether charity a person needs to give is warmer than duty, or whether it also serves the one who gives.
The need deepens the duty: she gives as someone who was once given to, so her charity is gratitude passed on.
remembering what she had suffered, and how she had been relieved—for her to act in her turn the guardian angel to the afflicted
A need serves the giver too: the rescue answers her own wish, and she chooses the one girl who draws her most.
My mother had much desired to have a daughter, but I continued their single offspring.
Among these there was one which attracted my mother far above all the rest.
A strong answer A strong answer may say that the need makes her charity personal: she acts “in her turn”, repaying her own rescue, which is warmer than a rule. It may also notice what the chapter sets beside it: she had “much desired” a daughter, and at the cottage one girl draws her “above all the rest”. Neither fact cancels the other. The best answers judge whether a rescue that also answers the rescuer’s wish is less generous, or simply human.
5. Victor’s mother takes one girl from a cottage of “five hungry babes”. How does the way Victor tells it ask us to see the four she leaves behind?Tone
What it asks It asks what the telling does with the four babes the rescue passes over: whether they are drawn as able to bear their lot, or only as a dark ground for the one fair girl.
The telling is fair to them: they are “hardy”, fitted to the life they were born to, and the rescue answers a real wrong, since it would be “unfair to her” to keep the one girl who was not.
The four others were dark-eyed, hardy little vagrants; this child was thin and very fair.
it would be unfair to her to keep her in poverty and want when Providence afforded her such powerful protection.
The telling sees them only as her background: dark against her gold, “brambles” to her “garden rose”, and the mother’s wonder never turns their way.
my mother fixed eyes of wonder and admiration on this lovely girl
She continued with her foster parents and bloomed in their rude abode, fairer than a garden rose among dark-leaved brambles.
A strong answer A strong answer notices how little the chapter spends on the four: one half-sentence, “dark-eyed, hardy little vagrants”, against a paragraph on the fair girl’s hair, brow and eyes. One reading takes “hardy” at its word: they are fitted to a hard life, and the rescue answers a real wrong, since it would be “unfair to her” to keep the one girl in want. Another reads the four as the dark ground that makes the gold shine, “dark-leaved brambles” to her “garden rose”, and says the telling never asks what they are owed. The best answers hold both, and say what choosing one of five shows about how this family decides who is owed its care.
6. Elizabeth’s father fought “to obtain the liberty of his country”, and his daughter was left an orphan. Victor’s father gave up “all his public functions” to care for his wife. Which of the two men does Victor seem to admire more?Moral reasoning
What it asks It asks the student to weigh two fathers, one who gave himself to his country and one who gave up public life for his wife, by the way Victor tells each.
Victor admires the patriot: he is spoken of in words of glory, and his ruin is laid on his country’s weakness, not his own.
The father of their charge was one of those Italians nursed in the memory of the antique glory of Italy
He became the victim of its weakness.
Victor admires his own father more: the chapter is built on his choice to leave public life and shelter the helpless, while the patriot’s cause leaves his daughter destitute.
my father had gradually relinquished all his public functions
His property was confiscated; his child became an orphan and a beggar.
A strong answer A strong answer notices that Victor speaks of Elizabeth’s father with respect: he was “nursed in the memory of the antique glory” of Italy, and he was ruined by his country’s weakness, not his own. Yet the chapter twice shows a daughter left “an orphan and a beggar” by a father whose pride or cause came first, while Victor’s father, once known for his “indefatigable attention” to public business, gave up “all his public functions”. Students may land on either side; the strongest answers say what each man gave up, and who paid for it.
1. Victor tells the story of his father’s marriage before he tells of his own birth at Naples. What would the chapter lose if it began there?
What it asks It asks for a thesis on what the opening gives the rest of the chapter, tested against the narrator’s own reason for telling it.
It would lose its pattern: love in this house begins as the rescue of the helpless, and every later gift, Victor’s own infancy and Elizabeth’s rescue, places a helpless life in someone’s care, as happened at the coffin in Lucerne.
He came like a protecting spirit to the poor girl, who committed herself to his care
remembering what she had suffered, and how she had been relieved—for her to act in her turn the guardian angel to the afflicted
It would lose only a portrait: Victor says the marriage shows his father’s character, and a chapter that began at Naples could still show that man through what he did for his son.
As the circumstances of his marriage illustrate his character, I cannot refrain from relating them.
He was respected by all who knew him for his integrity and indefatigable attention to public business.
A strong answer A strong thesis might argue that the chapter would lose its pattern. Victor’s father comes “like a protecting spirit” to an orphan who “committed herself to his care”, and years later that orphan, “in her turn”, lifts another girl out of a cottage; a chapter that began at Naples would show the gifts without the debt behind them. The strongest objection is Victor’s own stated reason: the marriage shows his father’s “character”, and a chapter that began at Naples could still show that man through his care for his son. A good revision can keep both, arguing that the character Victor sets out to show is a protector’s, and that the chapter repeats the rescue until a girl is placed in Victor’s own hands.
2. At five, Victor heard his mother’s playful promise of a present, and he “interpreted her words literally”. The grown man telling the story ends the chapter on “till death she was to be mine only”. How much of the boy’s claim does the man still hold?
What it asks It asks for a thesis on the narrator’s distance from the boy he was: whether the man corrects the five-year-old’s claim or still speaks it.
The man keeps his distance: calling the reading childish and literal marks it as a boy’s mistake he can now see.
I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth as mine—mine to protect, love, and cherish.
The man still holds it: the closing words are his, not the boy’s, and they make the claim lifelong.
No word, no expression could body forth the kind of relation in which she stood to me—my more than sister, since till death she was to be mine only.
All praises bestowed on her I received as made to a possession of my own.
A strong answer A strong thesis might argue that the man still holds much of the boy’s claim. He says he took his mother’s words “literally”, yet he never says the boy was wrong, and the last sentence, in his own grown voice, makes her “mine only” until death. The strongest objection is that calling his own reading “childish” already shows the man’s distance from the boy. A good revision might say that the man sees the boy’s mistake about the words but keeps the boy’s feeling about the girl, letting “protect, love, and cherish” and “possession” stand side by side.
3. Victor’s mother and father raised him knowing what they owed to the life they had given him. So why does he treat Elizabeth, the girl handed to him, as “a possession of my own”?
What it asks It asks the chapter’s big question: how a boy raised by a mother and father who knew their duty to a helpless life comes to hold the girl given to him as his own.
The home taught him both: his mother and father loved him with duty, but also as “their plaything and their idol”, and his mother herself offered Elizabeth as “a pretty present”, so keeping was part of the lesson.
I was their plaything and their idol
I have a pretty present for my Victor—tomorrow he shall have it.
He means to pay the same debt and gets it wrong: “mine to protect, love, and cherish” is his mother and father’s duty in a five-year-old’s words, and the possession comes from taking a gift literally.
looked upon Elizabeth as mine—mine to protect, love, and cherish
with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally
A strong answer A strong thesis might argue that the home taught Victor both lessons at once. His mother and father knew “their duties towards me”, but they also made him “their plaything and their idol”, and his mother, playing, offered Elizabeth as “a pretty present”. Taking those words “literally”, the boy received a person as a gift, and the man still hears every praise of her as praise of “a possession of my own”. The strongest objection is that “mine to protect, love, and cherish” is the language of duty, not of ownership; a good revision might say that in this chapter protection and possession are never fully pulled apart, and ask whether Victor himself can tell them apart.
He was respected by all who knew him for his integrity and indefatigable attention to public business.Tireless; able to keep at a task without wearing out (in-, meaning not, joined to a Latin root meaning to tire out). It shows how fully Victor’s father once gave himself to public business.
There was a show of gratitude and worship in his attachment to my mother, differing wholly from the doting fondness of age, for it was inspired by reverence for her virtues and a desire to be the means of, in some degree, recompensing her for the sorrows she had endured, but which gave inexpressible grace to his behaviour to her.Entirely; in every way. The son makes his claim absolute: his father’s love had nothing of an old man’s doting in it.
Her health, and even the tranquillity of her hitherto constant spirit, had been shaken by what she had gone through.Until then; up to that time. Her spirit had held steady through everything until her sorrows shook it.
The passionate and almost reverential attachment with which all regarded her became, while I shared it, my pride and my delight.Full of deep respect, close to worship (from reverence). With “almost”, the household’s love for Elizabeth stops just short of worship.