Chapter 20 — Teaching Companion

What it asks It asks the student to test how Victor counts the promise. Alone in the laboratory he asks, “Had I right, for my own benefit, to inflict this curse upon everlasting generations?” A few lines later he fears that future ages will curse him as one “whose selfishness had not hesitated to buy its own peace”. In his new account, keeping the promise would serve only himself. Yet the same reasoning recalls what the creature had sworn in return: “to quit the neighbourhood of man and hide himself in deserts”. It also names what the creature wanted: “those sympathies for which the dæmon thirsted”. The student decides who the promise was meant to help. The card must not say what the new being would truly have been: every fear in these paragraphs is Victor’s guess about a being who never wakes.

One reading

Victor’s own. He gave it after he had been “struck senseless” by the creature’s threats, to buy safety for himself and the people he loves. Seen that way, keeping it would be what he now calls it: selfishness that buys its own peace and leaves the risk to everyone born after. On this reading, Victor sees the promise rightly at last.

• I had been struck senseless by his fiendish threats;
• whose selfishness had not hesitated to buy its own peace at the price, perhaps, of the existence of the whole human race.

Another reading

The creature’s, and the world’s. The promise gave the creature the companion he thirsted for. In return he swore to leave mankind alone and hide in deserts, so the promise was also meant to keep people safe. When Victor calls keeping it “for my own benefit”, both of those drop out of the count, and the count tips toward breaking it.

• He had sworn to quit the neighbourhood of man and hide himself in deserts, but she had not;
• those sympathies for which the dæmon thirsted

Listen for

• Notices that the same reasoning names what the creature swore in return: to “quit the neighbourhood of man”.
• Hears “for my own benefit” and “selfishness” as Victor’s new names for keeping his word, and asks what made him give it: “sophisms” and “fiendish threats”.
• Notices that two of Victor’s fears are fears for the creature: that the pair “might even hate each other”, and that she might leave him “and he be again alone”.
• Weighs whether a promise given out of fear serves the one who gave it or the one it was given to.

If stuck

• What did Victor promise the creature, and what had the creature sworn to do?
• If the promise were kept, who would be happier? Who would be safer?
• Why might Victor now call keeping it “for my own benefit”?

A strong answer A strong response names who the promise was meant to help and grounds it. One reader says Victor’s own: he gave it once he had been “struck senseless” by threats, and he now sees keeping it as selfishness that buys “its own peace”. Another says the creature’s and the world’s: it answered the “sympathies for which the dæmon thirsted”, and bound him to “hide himself in deserts” away from mankind. The best answers notice who drops out when Victor says “for my own benefit”, and ask what he gains by counting it that way.

What it asks It asks the student to read the creature’s first speech in the hut as an argument. He shuts the door and asks, “Do you dare to break your promise?” Before any threat he gives a list: he left Switzerland with Victor, crept along the Rhine “among its willow islands”, and dwelt “many months in the heaths of England and among the deserts of Scotland”, enduring “incalculable fatigue, and cold, and hunger”. Only after Victor answers “I do break my promise” does he call him “Slave” and claim power. The student decides what the list is for. Victor has already told the same journey from his side, at the window: “he had followed me in my travels”. The card must not say what the new being would truly have been.

One reading

A plea. The list is the price he has paid for the promise. He has followed the work from Switzerland to Scotland in toil and misery, and he asks Victor to weigh that before breaking his word. He is still reasoning here, as he says himself a moment later: “I before reasoned with you”. The list turns the promise into a debt, and his “hopes” into what is owed.

• I have endured toil and misery; I left Switzerland with you;
• I have endured incalculable fatigue, and cold, and hunger; do you dare destroy my hopes?

Another reading

A warning. The list tells Victor that he has been watched the whole way, unseen, from Switzerland to this island. No river, heath or desert was far enough. Victor knows it already: he names the forests, caves and heaths himself when he sees the face at the window. Read this way, the journey is the first threat, said quietly, and the commands that follow only say it outright.

• I crept along the shores of the Rhine, among its willow islands and over the summits of its hills.
• Yes, he had followed me in my travels; he had loitered in forests, hid himself in caves, or taken refuge in wide and desert heaths;

Listen for

• Hears the journey told twice: by Victor at the window (“he had followed me in my travels”) and by the creature in the hut. The watched man and the watcher tell the same road.
• Notices “I left Switzerland with you”: the creature counts himself Victor’s fellow traveller, not his pursuer.
• Notices the order of the speech: the list, then “do you dare destroy my hopes?”, and the commands only after Victor says “I do break my promise”.
• Weighs whether a debt paid in suffering can bind a man who never asked for it to be paid.

If stuck

• Where has the creature been since Victor left Switzerland?
• What does he want Victor to feel when he hears the list?
• Would the same list sound different to a friend and to a man who fears him?

A strong answer A strong response says what the list is for and grounds it in the speech. One reader hears a plea: he has “endured toil and misery” to follow the work, and he sets that cost before Victor as a debt, ending “do you dare destroy my hopes?” Another hears a warning: he has crept along the Rhine and lived in heaths and deserts without being seen, so no place is beyond him, and the threats that follow only say it outright. The best answers notice “I left Switzerland with you”, and ask how one journey can be company to one man and pursuit to the other.

What it asks It asks the student to set Victor’s reason for breaking his word beside what he does when the creature he already made gets away. After the last words in the hut, Victor “would have seized him, but he eluded me”, and the boat is soon lost amid the waves. Victor burns “with rage to pursue” him and asks himself, “Why had I not followed him and closed with him in mortal strife?” He knows the creature is heading “towards the mainland”, and he shudders to think “who might be the next victim”. By the end of the night he resolves only “not to fall before my enemy without a bitter struggle.” The student decides why Victor does not go after him. The card must not say who the next victim will be, or that the wedding-night threat is aimed at anyone but Victor.

One reading

He could not. The creature is too quick for him: he slips Victor’s grasp, and his boat shoots off “with an arrowy swiftness”. When the creature first came to the door, Victor was frozen by a helplessness like the one in bad dreams. The question Victor asks himself afterwards is rage looking back, not a choice he failed to make.

• I would have seized him, but he eluded me and quitted the house with precipitation.
• I was overcome by the sensation of helplessness, so often felt in frightful dreams,

Another reading

He let him go. Victor’s own word for it is “suffered”: he allowed it. Apart from one lunge at the end, his stand in the hut was a stand of words: he will not make, he will not bend, he is “inexorable”. He fought the creature he might make, not the one he had made. And he knows where that one is going: toward the mainland, toward people. The man who broke his word to keep future ages safe leaves the present danger loose, and saves his struggle for the night he believes will be his last.

• But I had suffered him to depart, and he had directed his course towards the mainland.
• I shuddered to think who might be the next victim sacrificed to his insatiate revenge.

Listen for

• Hears two accounts of one moment: “he eluded me” and “I had suffered him to depart”.
• Notices that the rage comes after the boat is gone: “I burned with rage to pursue the murderer of my peace”.
• Notices that Victor plans his struggle for the wedding night, “not to fall before my enemy without a bitter struggle”, not for now.
• Weighs the danger Victor refused to make against the one he already made, which is loose and heading for the mainland.

If stuck

• What happens when Victor tries to seize the creature?
• Which way does the boat go, and what does Victor fear will happen there?
• Victor broke his word to keep the world safe. Does letting the creature go fit that reason?

A strong answer A strong response says why Victor does not go after him and grounds it. One reader says he could not: the creature “eluded” him, the boat shot off “with an arrowy swiftness”, and Victor’s question to himself is rage after the fact. Another says he let him go: his own word is “suffered”, apart from one lunge, his stand in the hut was words, and he leaves the creature he already made heading for the mainland. The best answers set this beside his reason for breaking the promise, and ask which danger Victor treats as the real one.

What it asks It asks the student to decide what was lost at the window. The morning after Clerval’s letter comes, Victor unlocks the room he calls “the scene of my odious work”. “The remains of the half-finished creature, whom I had destroyed, lay scattered on the floor, and I almost felt as if I had mangled the living flesh of a human being.” He packs them in a basket with stones and sinks them at sea that night. The student decides what he destroyed. The card must not say what the new being would have been; she never woke.

One reading

A work, not a life. She never woke. Victor calls her “the thing on which I was engaged” as he tears her apart, and he packs the “relics of my work” so the peasants will not find them. “Almost” and “as if” hold the feeling at a distance. It felt like a killing, but what he destroyed was a plan and its materials.

• tore to pieces the thing on which I was engaged.
• I ought not to leave the relics of my work to excite the horror and suspicion of the peasants;

Another reading

Someone. When he comes back she is a “creature, whom I had destroyed”, and “whom” is a word for a person. He gets rid of the remains as a man gets rid of a body: by night, weighted with stones, in a moment of darkness. He feels like a criminal while he does it. What died was a future, the one the creature “depended” on for happiness.

• The remains of the half-finished creature, whom I had destroyed, lay scattered on the floor,
• I felt as if I was about the commission of a dreadful crime

Listen for

• Notices the names Victor gives her: “the thing”, “the half-finished creature, whom I had destroyed”, “the relics of my work”.
• Notices “almost” and “as if”: he does not say he killed anyone.
• Notices that Victor himself tells the creature’s loss: “the creature on whose future existence he depended for happiness”.
• Notices the cloud over the moon, and that he waits for it before he drops the basket.

If stuck

• What does Victor find when he unlocks the door?
• What words does he use for her, at the window and when he comes back?
• Can you destroy someone who has never been alive?

A strong answer A strong response says what was destroyed and grounds it in Victor’s words. One reader says a work: she is “the thing on which I was engaged” and the “relics of my work”, and “almost” keeps the feeling of murder at arm’s length. Another says someone: when he comes back she is “whom I had destroyed”, and he sinks the basket like a criminal hiding a body. The best answers notice that Victor’s words for her change, and ask what changed them.

What it asks It asks the student to read the chapter’s last scene for what it says about judging someone by how he looks. Victor lands worn out, and a crowd meets him with whispers, frowning faces and a man who tells him that “it is the custom of the Irish to hate villains.” He is told to give an account of a gentleman found murdered the night before. He follows in silence, sure that his innocence “could easily be proved”. Yet he thinks it “politic to rouse all my strength, that no physical debility might be construed into apprehension or conscious guilt.” The student decides why a man sure of his innocence needs to look it. The card must not say who the gentleman is or who killed him; the chapter stops before Victor sees the body.

One reading

Because a crowd reads faces, not facts. These people have taken him for a villain before he has given any account of himself, from his looks alone. Innocence does not show on a face; tiredness and fear do, and a hostile crowd will read them as guilt. Victor is now where the creature has stood all his life: judged on sight by strangers.

• They seemed much surprised at my appearance, but instead of offering me any assistance, whispered together
• it is the custom of the Irish to hate villains.

Another reading

Because he does not feel innocent, even if he is innocent of this death. The chapter opened with Victor filled “for ever with the bitterest remorse” for the fiend he made. Since then he has broken his word to that fiend and torn up its hopes. A man who carries that much guilt knows it may show. The strength he puts on hides more than hunger.

• had created a fiend whose unparalleled barbarity had desolated my heart and filled it for ever with the bitterest remorse.
• I thought it politic to rouse all my strength, that no physical debility might be construed into apprehension or conscious guilt.

Listen for

• Hears “conscious guilt”: Victor fears the crowd will see guilt in him, not only weakness.
• Sets the crowd’s reading of Victor beside his own reading of the face at the window: “the utmost extent of malice and treachery”.
• Hears “Is not this a free country?” from the man the creature called “Slave”, and the answer: “free enough for honest folks.”
• Keeps clear of who the gentleman is or who killed him; the chapter stops before Victor learns anything more.

If stuck

• How does the crowd treat Victor when he lands?
• What does Victor do so that the crowd will not think him guilty?
• Can you tell from a face whether someone has done wrong? Who else in this chapter is judged by his face?

A strong answer A strong response says why Victor needs to look innocent and grounds it. One reader says the crowd reads faces, not facts: it met him with whispers and “curiosity and anger”, and a man called him a villain before he had given any account of himself. Any weakness would be read as guilt. Another says he does not feel innocent: he began the chapter with “the bitterest remorse” for the fiend he made, and the strength he puts on hides more than hunger. The best answers set the crowd’s reading of Victor beside his own reading of the face at the window, and do not guess who the dead man is or who killed him.

What it asks It asks the student to test what caused the act. Victor stops work at moonrise, reasons through his fears, and the wickedness of his promise “burst upon me”. Then he looks up and sees the creature at the casement, a “ghastly grin” on his lips, watching him at “the task which he had allotted to me”. Victor reads in the face “the utmost extent of malice and treachery”, thinks “with a sensation of madness” on his promise and, “trembling with passion”, tears the half-made body to pieces. The student builds a thesis on what Victor would have done without the grin, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The grin is the moment the reasoning becomes an act, not a horror effect.

One reading

He would have stopped anyway. The reasoning was finished before the face appeared: he had asked whether he had the right and found the promise wicked. The grin only chose the moment. On the beach the idea of going back to the work never enters his head.

• but now, for the first time, the wickedness of my promise burst upon me;
• The idea of renewing my labours did not for one instant occur to me;

Another reading

He might have gone on. His pause was over whether to stop “for the night” or hurry the work to its end, not whether to give it up. He has changed his mind about this promise before, moved by arguments and threats. The act itself came from passion at a face he read as malice. Without the face, the reasoning might have stayed a night’s thought.

• in a pause of consideration of whether I should leave my labour for the night or hasten its conclusion by an unremitting attention to it.
• I thought with a sensation of madness on my promise of creating another like to him, and trembling with passion, tore to pieces the thing on which I was engaged.

Listen for

• Notices the two choices in the pause: to leave the labour “for the night” or to “hasten its conclusion”.
• Sets “trembling with passion” at the window beside “Shall I, in cool blood” in the hut.
• Notices that “malice and treachery” is Victor’s reading of the face, and asks what else the creature, who had followed him for months, might have felt at that window.
• Notices “allotted”: Victor sees himself at a task set for him, like a servant watched by his master.

If stuck

• What is Victor thinking about before he looks up?
• What does he see at the window, and what does he do next?
• Is a decision the same thing as an act? What turned one into the other here?

A strong answer A strong thesis takes a side on the counterfactual and earns it. A student might argue that he would have stopped anyway: the wickedness of the promise “burst upon me” before he looked up, and on the beach going back “did not for one instant occur to me”. The strongest objection is that his pause was only over leaving the work “for the night”, and that the act came “trembling with passion” at a face he read as malice. A good revision might grant that the reasons came first but the act came from the grin, and ask which of the two Victor should be judged by.

What it asks It asks the student to judge Victor’s account of his own mind. Cleaning his instruments on the beach, he writes that “Nothing could be more complete than the alteration” in his feelings. He had held the promise “with a gloomy despair as a thing that, with whatever consequences, must be fulfilled”, but now feels “as if a film had been taken from before my eyes”. In the same paragraph he does not reflect that “a voluntary act of mine could avert” the threat, and he banishes “every thought that could lead to a different conclusion.” The student builds a thesis on how far to trust this clear sight, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not bring in Victor’s later verdict on the refusal, or the book’s.

One reading

Trust it. Before, he meant to keep the promise whatever it cost. Now he looks at the cost. Shutting out other thoughts is how a man holds a hard decision against a real threat: he knows the danger to himself and will not buy his safety with the risk to everyone else.

• I had before regarded my promise with a gloomy despair as a thing that, with whatever consequences, must be fulfilled;
• the threat I had heard weighed on my thoughts, but I did not reflect that a voluntary act of mine could avert it.

Another reading

Be wary. A man who sees clearly can bear to look at the other side, and Victor will not let it in. His feelings in this chapter swing fast: calm about his death one night, weeping with joy at the sight of land a few days later. He says so himself. A clear sight that must be guarded from every other thought may be a decision dressed up as a vision.

• I banished from my mind every thought that could lead to a different conclusion.
• How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that clinging love we have of life even in the excess of misery!

Listen for

• Notices that “for the first time” comes twice: in the laboratory, where “the wickedness of my promise burst upon me”, and on the beach.
• Notices the film over the eyes: the image says he was blind before, which is a large claim about his earlier self.
• Sets “The prospect did not move me to fear” beside “I confess that I felt a few sensations of terror” at sea.
• Asks what the thoughts he banishes might have been, from what the creature said in the hut.

If stuck

• What does Victor say changed in him by the next morning?
• What does he shut out of his mind?
• Can someone see clearly and still refuse to look at part of the picture?

A strong answer A strong thesis says how far to trust the clear sight and argues it. A student might argue for trust: he has moved from a promise kept “with whatever consequences” to weighing the consequences, and holding firm against a real threat takes shutting some thoughts out. The strongest objection is that he shuts out “every thought that could lead to a different conclusion”, and that his own feelings are, in his word, “mutable”. A good revision might say that the change is real but the certainty is guarded, and ask what a clear sight would look like if it could face the creature’s plea.

What it asks It asks the chapter’s whole question. In the laboratory Victor reasons slowly about future ages: the new being might be worse than her mate, might refuse a compact made before her creation, and might give rise to a race that would make the life of mankind “precarious and full of terror”. But the act comes in an instant, “trembling with passion”, at the sight of the grin at the window. In the hut the creature both commands and pleads, and leaves naming the wedding night as the hour of his revenge. Only on the beach the next day does Victor feel that he “for the first time saw clearly.” The student builds a thesis on whether Victor was right, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not say what the new being would truly have been, that the wedding-night threat is aimed at anyone but Victor, or what Victor or the book later concludes.

One reading

Right. He sets the generations to come against his own peace, and refuses to buy the one with the other. The creature’s answer in the hut, commands and threats and revenge “dearer than light or food”, shows what a second being of his kind might have meant. A promise extracted by fear does not oblige a man to set loose a danger on the earth.

• Shall I, in cool blood, set loose upon the earth a dæmon whose delight is in death and wretchedness?
• I will watch with the wiliness of a snake, that I may sting with its venom.

Another reading

Not as he did it. Every fear is a guess about a being who never woke. The creature’s plea is real: he asks for what every man and beast has, and his affection has been met with hatred. And the act came from passion at a face, not from the reasoning. Breaking his word in that way leaves the creature nothing but revenge.

• I had feelings of affection, and they were requited by detestation and scorn.
• The wretch saw me destroy the creature on whose future existence he depended for happiness,

Listen for

• Weighs the fear that she “might refuse to comply with a compact made before her creation”: can a bargain bind someone who did not exist when it was made?
• Hears the plea “and I be alone?” as an answer to Victor’s fears: the creature asks only for what “each beast” has.
• Hears the cost Victor names on the beach: “to be sacrificed or to see those whom I most loved die under the grasp of a dæmon whom I had myself created.”
• Keeps the fears as fears: “might”, “perhaps”, “in all probability”.

If stuck

• What promise did Victor make, and what does he do instead?
• What are his reasons, and what does the creature say back?
• Can a choice be right if it is made in a burst of passion?

A strong answer A strong thesis takes a side and earns it against the chapter’s own pressure. A student might argue that Victor was right: he would not buy his own peace at the price “perhaps, of the existence of the whole human race”, and the creature’s threats in the hut only confirm the danger. The strongest objection is the creature’s own case: his affection was “requited by detestation and scorn”, the fears are all “might”, and the act came in passion at a grin. A good revision might grant that his fears were serious enough to stop the work. It might then ask what Victor still owed the creature once he broke his word.