Frankenstein

Chapter 21

Mary Shelley · Mountaineers 10th–12th

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My father was enraptured on finding me freed from the vexations of a criminal charge, that I was again allowed to breathe the fresh atmosphere and permitted to return to my native country. I did not participate in these feelings, for to me the walls of a dungeon or a palace were alike hateful. The cup of life was poisoned for ever, and although the sun shone upon me, as upon the happy and gay of heart, I saw around me nothing but a dense and frightful darkness, penetrated by no light but the glimmer of two eyes that glared upon me.

Yet one duty remained to me, the recollection of which finally triumphed over my selfish despair. It was necessary that I should return without delay to Geneva, there to watch over the lives of those I so fondly loved and to lie in wait for the murderer, that if any chance led me to the place of his concealment, or if he dared again to blast me by his presence, I might, with unfailing aim, put an end to the existence of the monstrous image which I had endued with the mockery of a soul still more monstrous.

Read both passages aloud. Each one ends on a long sentence. What does each of those sentences make you wait for?

For the educator Two passages, five sentences, both from the last pages of the chapter. The first opens the paragraph on Victor’s release: a long sentence of his father’s joy, a short refusal, and a long sentence of darkness. The middle sentence turns on a balanced pair, “the walls of a dungeon or a palace”, and sets them equal. The last sentence grants the sunshine with “although”, then takes it away: “nothing but a dense and frightful darkness, penetrated by no light but the glimmer of two eyes”. Two uses of “but” shut out the world one exception at a time, until a single point of light is left. The second passage is a short sentence that names a duty and a long one whose last clause holds its verb back. Two “if” clauses (“if any chance led me” and “or if he dared again”) come first, then “I might, with unfailing aim, put an end”, and the sentence closes on the same word turned: “the monstrous image” given “a soul still more monstrous.” The words enraptured, vexations and endued are in the vocabulary. For the talk prompt, listen for a student who hears the first sentence close in by shutting light out, and the second by clearing every condition out of the way before the aim. One ends on what Victor cannot stop seeing, the other on what he means to do about it.

Discussion

Narration Tell the chapter back in your own words, from the fisherman’s account before the magistrate to the night at sea when Victor’s father wakes him.

Daniel Nugent “swore positively” that the boat he saw near the shore was the one Victor landed in, “as far as he could judge by the light of a few stars.” What is that oath worth? Inference
Mr. Kirwin has Victor taken to the body to see what the sight of it will do to him. What does the test find out? Moral reasoning
In his fever, Victor raved that he was a murderer three times over. He spoke his native language, so Mr. Kirwin alone understood him, and Victor calls that fortunate. Fortunate for whom? Tone
Victor wakes up sorry to be alive. The nurse tells him he would be better off dead. How is her reason different from his? Character
Henry was found with “the black mark of fingers on his neck.” In his fever, and again in a dream at sea, Victor feels the monster’s fingers on his own neck. Why does he keep feeling them there? Theme

Make a Connection Think of a story, a piece of history or a time in your own life when someone felt to blame for a harm their own hands did not do. What did they do with that feeling?

Vocabulary

augury: The magistrate observed me with a keen eye and of course drew an unfavourable augury from my manner. A sign read as a warning of what is to come, or the reading of such a sign. The augurs of ancient Rome foretold events from the flight of birds, and inaugurate comes from the same root. Mr. Kirwin draws “an unfavourable augury” from Victor’s trembling: he reads the man’s manner as a sign of guilt. The word makes the magistrate a reader of signs.
vexations: My father was enraptured on finding me freed from the vexations of a criminal charge, that I was again allowed to breathe the fresh atmosphere and permitted to return to my native country. Troubles that annoy and wear a person down; worries rather than disasters (from vex, to trouble or irritate). Victor’s father rejoices to see him freed “from the vexations of a criminal charge”. Set inside the father’s joy, the word makes a charge of murder sound like a nuisance now past.
enraptured: My father was enraptured on finding me freed from the vexations of a criminal charge, that I was again allowed to breathe the fresh atmosphere and permitted to return to my native country. Filled with delight; carried away by joy (rapture comes from the Latin for being seized and carried off). His father is “enraptured” at the release, and the next sentence begins, “I did not participate in these feelings”. The word sets the height of one man’s joy beside the other’s flat refusal of it.
endued: It was necessary that I should return without delay to Geneva, there to watch over the lives of those I so fondly loved and to lie in wait for the murderer, that if any chance led me to the place of his concealment, or if he dared again to blast me by his presence, I might, with unfailing aim, put an end to the existence of the monstrous image which I had endued with the mockery of a soul still more monstrous. Gave someone a quality, as if putting it on him like a garment; close in meaning to endowed. Victor means to destroy “the monstrous image which I had endued with the mockery of a soul”. The verb keeps the maker inside the sentence: whatever soul the creature has, Victor says he gave it.
torpor: Sometimes, indeed, I felt a wish for happiness and thought with melancholy delight of my beloved cousin or longed, with a devouring _maladie du pays_, to see once more the blue lake and rapid Rhone, that had been so dear to me in early childhood; but my general state of feeling was a torpor in which a prison was as welcome a residence as the divinest scene in nature; and these fits were seldom interrupted but by paroxysms of anguish and despair. A heavy dullness of body and mind, in which nothing moves you (from the Latin for being numb; torpid is the same family). After his release Victor’s usual state is “a torpor in which a prison was as welcome a residence as the divinest scene in nature”. Torpor is not sorrow so much as the absence of feeling, which is why a prison and the loveliest place on earth are the same to him.
paroxysms: Sometimes, indeed, I felt a wish for happiness and thought with melancholy delight of my beloved cousin or longed, with a devouring _maladie du pays_, to see once more the blue lake and rapid Rhone, that had been so dear to me in early childhood; but my general state of feeling was a torpor in which a prison was as welcome a residence as the divinest scene in nature; and these fits were seldom interrupted but by paroxysms of anguish and despair. Sudden, violent fits of a feeling or a pain, coming and going like attacks of fever. Victor’s torpor is “seldom interrupted but by paroxysms of anguish and despair”, and in those moments he tries to end his life. The word pairs with torpor: long dullness, broken only by bursts of pain.

Critical thinking

In prison, Victor’s father says that “a fatality seems to pursue you.” Victor agrees that a horrible destiny hangs over him, and that he “must live to fulfil it.” What does calling it destiny do to the blame?
Victor calls his wish to die “selfish despair.” What makes it selfish, in his own eyes?
The grand jury frees Victor, yet he calls himself Clerval’s murderer. Who is right about his guilt, the jury or Victor?