Chapter 23 — Teaching Companion

What it asks It asks the student to stand inside a silence. Victor has spent the evening on watch, gripping a pistol hidden at his chest, resolved to fight until “my own life or that of my adversary was extinguished.” Elizabeth watches him “in timid and fearful silence” until something in his glance has “communicated terror to her”; trembling, she asks, “What is it you fear?” He answers, “Peace, peace, my love”, and tells her only, “this night, and all will be safe; but this night is dreadful, very dreadful.” An hour later he begs her to go to bed and searches the house for his enemy. The student decides why he keeps his fear from her on the one night it matters most. The card must not treat the choice as plain foolishness: he sends her away to protect her. It must not say why the creature killed her; the chapter shows his grin and pointing finger, not his reasons.

One reading

To spare her. Victor believes the danger is his alone and that it ends tonight: “this night, and all will be safe.” By morning, he thinks, either he or his enemy will be dead, and she need never carry the fear he has carried. He keeps quiet for the same reason he sends her out of the room: he thinks how “fearful” the fight would be to her, and he means to keep the fight, and the fear of it, away from her.

• this night, and all will be safe;
• how fearful the combat which I momentarily expected would be to my wife,

Another reading

Because the only true answer is a tale too strange to tell. To say what he fears, he would have to say what he made and what it has done: William, Justine, Clerval. Months later, calm and in order, he still opens that tale to a judge by saying it is so strange he fears it will not be believed. On the wedding night, with a pistol hidden at his chest and the storm outside, the story would sound like madness, and he keeps it to himself.

• the monster whom I had created,
• It is indeed a tale so strange that I should fear you would not credit it

Listen for

• Notices that his glance has already “communicated terror to her”: the silence does not spare her the fear, only the reason for it.
• Hears “this night, and all will be safe”: he believes the danger ends at dawn, one way or the other.
• Notices “my own life or that of my adversary”: the fight he pictures has two people in it, and she is not one of them.
• Sets this silence beside the chapter’s end, where he tells his whole history to a stranger “with firmness and precision”: the man who would not tell his wife now tells a judge the whole tale.

If stuck

• What does Elizabeth ask, and what does Victor answer?
• What does Victor believe will happen before morning?
• To answer her fully, what would he have had to explain?

A strong answer A strong response gives a reason for the silence and grounds it in the hour before she leaves. One reader says he keeps quiet to spare her: he believes the danger is his alone and ends tonight, “this night, and all will be safe”, and he sends her away for the same reason, thinking how “fearful” the fight would be to her. Another says the truth is a tale too strange to tell: to answer her he would have to speak of the creature he made, and even months later he opens that tale to a judge by fearing it will not be believed. The best answers notice that his glance has already frightened her, so the silence spares her the reason and not the fear, and set this silence against the calm, exact telling at the chapter’s end.

What it asks It asks the student to look at a picture Victor cannot put down. He rushes in at the second scream and finds Elizabeth “lifeless and inanimate, thrown across the bed”; he cries, “Why did I not then expire!”, and falls senseless. When he comes to, she has been moved: her head is on her arm, with “a handkerchief thrown across her face and neck”, and he “might have supposed her asleep” until he holds her and finds “the murderous mark of the fiend’s grasp” on her neck. Yet as he tells the story, long after, he says in the present tense, “Everywhere I turn I see the same figure”, and the figure is the first one, “flung by the murderer on its bridal bier.” The student decides what that first picture holds for him. The card must not say why the creature killed her, and must not say that Victor is proven mad or proven sane.

One reading

The murder, and so the murderer. The second picture is a death: a woman who might be asleep, with the mark on her neck hidden under a handkerchief. The first is a crime, a body “flung by the murderer”. A death can be mourned; a crime calls for someone to answer for it. The picture that stays already has the creature in it, and it points ahead to the man who will stand before a judge and demand his capture.

• her bloodless arms and relaxed form flung by the murderer on its bridal bier.
• a handkerchief thrown across her face and neck,

Another reading

The moment as it struck him, alone. He saw the first picture before anyone came, moments after “the whole truth rushed into my mind”; the second was arranged by other hands, for mourners. The first is his alone, like the face at the window that most of the searchers decide was his fancy. He keeps seeing what no one else saw, and that is the very thing that makes others doubt him.

• the whole truth rushed into my mind,
• Everywhere I turn I see the same figure

Listen for

• Notices that the handkerchief lies across her neck, where the mark of the fiend’s grasp is: the gentler picture covers the crime.
• Hears the present tense, “Everywhere I turn I see”: long after, as he tells the story, the picture has not left him.
• Notices “bridal bier”: the wedding bed and the death bed in two words.
• Sets “Could I behold this and live?” beside the vow that, months later, “reconciled me to life”: what lets a man go on living with this picture?

If stuck

• How does Victor first find Elizabeth, and how does she look when he sees her again?
• Who sees the first picture, and who sees the second?
• When something terrible happens, why might the first sight of it stay longer than a gentler one?

A strong answer A strong response names what the first picture holds and grounds it in both scenes. One reader says it holds the murder: the second picture is a death that looks like sleep, with the handkerchief across the very neck that bears the fiend’s mark, while the first is a body “flung by the murderer”, a crime that calls for someone to answer for it and so already points toward the hunt. Another says it holds the moment as it struck Victor alone, before other hands arranged it: a truth no one else saw, like the face at the window the searchers put down to fancy. The best answers hear the present tense, “Everywhere I turn I see”, and ask what a man does with a picture he cannot put down.

What it asks It asks the student to set two attempts at relief side by side. Crossing the lake to Geneva, Victor takes an oar himself, “for I had always experienced relief from mental torment in bodily exercise.” This time his misery leaves him “incapable of any exertion”; he throws down the oar and sees the fish that Elizabeth had watched a few hours before. Months later, out of the cell, he awakens to revenge, and before the magistrate “this purpose quieted my agony and for an interval reconciled me to life.” The student decides what the vow gives him that work could not. The card must not say where the hunt leads or how it ends.

One reading

It gives the pain somewhere to go. Rowing moves the body and leaves the mind where it was, among scenes he had looked at the day before with Elizabeth. The vow turns the mind outward, to a cause and a future. Once he knows what he will do, the misery has a shape, and he can sit before a judge and speak calmly.

• I began to reflect on their cause
• this purpose quieted my agony and for an interval reconciled me to life.

Another reading

It does not ease the pain; it swallows it. The oar fails because the grief is too large for any task. The vow works because it is larger still: Victor calls it “the devouring and only passion of my soul.” A passion that leaves room for nothing else leaves no room for agony either. The calm is real, and it costs everything else.

• I was possessed by a maddening rage when I thought of him,
• the devouring and only passion of my soul.

Listen for

• Notices “for an interval”: even the vow’s calm is said to last only a while.
• Notices the fish “observed by Elizabeth”: on the lake the scene pulls him back, where the vow pulls him forward.
• Hears “Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change” and asks what kind of change the vow is.
• Sets “Liberty, however, had been a useless gift to me” beside the oar: both ought to help, and neither helps alone.

If stuck

• Why does Victor take an oar, and what happens when he does?
• What does Victor say his purpose did for him before the magistrate?
• Is being calmed the same as being healed?

A strong answer A strong response names what the vow does and grounds it in both moments. One reader says it gives the pain a direction: rowing leaves his mind among the scenes he saw with Elizabeth, while the vow turns it toward a cause and a future, so that “this purpose quieted my agony”. Another says the vow does not ease the pain but swallows it: it is “the devouring and only passion of my soul”, and a passion that fills everything leaves no room for grief. The best answers notice that the calm lasts only “for an interval”, and ask what it costs.

What it asks It asks the student to notice how the teller spends his words. After the lake, Victor asks, “But why should I dwell upon the incidents that followed this last overwhelming event?” What remains, he says, “can but be tedious to you”, and his strength is exhausted. His father’s death takes one paragraph; months in “a solitary cell” take another. Then the visit to the criminal judge fills most of what is left: Victor’s speeches, the magistrate’s answers, the changes in the magistrate’s face, and Victor’s own manner, “impressive but calm”. The student decides why this scene gets the room. The card must not say where the hunt leads, and must not say that Victor is proven mad or proven sane.

One reading

It is where his life starts again. Everything before the cell is loss, told and done. The visit is the first thing he does with the resolution that “reconciled me to life.” A man telling the story of what he has become slows down where he became it, and the scene closes not on an ending but on a plan.

• I had formed in my own heart a resolution to pursue my destroyer to death,
• retired to meditate on some other mode of action.

Another reading

It is his evidence. He has just told his listener that “they had called me mad”. The scene shows him giving his tale “with firmness and precision”, with the dates in order, to a magistrate who shudders and stops disbelieving. Told in full, it lets the listener judge his mind for himself, at the very point where another man judged it delirium.

• For they had called me mad,
• with firmness and precision, marking the dates with accuracy and never deviating into invective or exclamation.

Listen for

• Notices that Victor also reports his own “frenzy” and the rage that “sparkled in my eyes”: if the scene is his evidence, he does not edit it in his favour.
• Notices “briefly”: he told the magistrate his history briefly too, so the long scene is not the tale but the asking.
• Hears “tedious to you”: the teller has a listener, and chooses what that listener needs.
• Notices that his father’s death, a loss told with great love, gets a single paragraph, and asks where the teller’s mind now lives.

If stuck

• Which events does Victor hurry over, and what does he say about them?
• What happens, step by step, in the magistrate’s house?
• When you tell a long story, which parts do you slow down for?

A strong answer A strong response gives a reason for the scene’s length and grounds it in how Victor tells it. One reader says it is where his new life begins: everything before is loss, and the visit is the first act of the resolution that “reconciled me to life”, ending on a plan. Another reads it as his evidence: having said “they had called me mad”, he shows himself telling his tale “with firmness and precision” to a magistrate who shudders and half believes. The best answers notice that he also reports his own frenzy, and weigh what kind of witness tells against himself.

What it asks It asks the student to judge one answer. Victor has called on the magistrate to exert his “whole power” against the creature. The magistrate, who heard the tale with “that half kind of belief that is given to a tale of spirits”, feels “the whole tide of his incredulity” return when he is asked to act. He answers mildly that the creature’s powers “would put all my exertions to defiance”, that it can cross “the sea of ice”, and that months have passed. Victor says he can see the magistrate’s thoughts; rage sparkles in his eyes, and the magistrate, “intimidated”, replies, “I will exert myself”, while warning that the capture “will prove impracticable” and that Victor should “make up your mind to disappointment.” Victor answers, “You refuse my just demand”. The student names the answer. The card must not say the magistrate refuses to act, and must not make him a fool or a villain: he gives real reasons for doubt.

One reading

A polite refusal. The magistrate’s belief went only halfway, and it ran out the moment it asked something of him. His firmest promise, “I will exert myself”, comes only after Victor’s rage has frightened him, and it names no step he will take. Pursuing “every proper measure” while expecting failure is a way of doing nothing that can be called something. Victor hears the door closing, and he is right.

• the whole tide of his incredulity returned.
• As I spoke, rage sparkled in my eyes; the magistrate was intimidated.

Another reading

An honest promise with honest limits. He listens “with attention and kindness”, shudders at the tale, and offers “every aid”. His doubts are practical: who can follow a creature across the sea of ice, months after the crimes, to a place no one can guess? He says plainly that he will exert himself, and he tells Victor the truth about the odds. Victor wanted a hunt; he got an official who will not promise what he cannot do.

• I would willingly afford you every aid in your pursuit,
• I will exert myself, and if it is in my power to seize the monster,

Listen for

• Notices exactly when the doubt comes back: not while the magistrate listens, but “when he was called upon to act officially”.
• Hears that Victor names the refusal before the final answer is given: “But I perceive your thoughts”.
• Weighs the sea of ice and the months gone as reasons, and asks whether they are also excuses.
• Notices that the creature’s powers, which make the hunt look hopeless, come from Victor’s own tale: “from what you have yourself described”.

If stuck

• What does Victor ask the magistrate to do?
• What reasons does the magistrate give for doubting it can be done?
• Can someone say yes and still mean no?

A strong answer A strong response names the answer and grounds the name. One reader calls it a polite refusal: the magistrate’s belief was only half, his incredulity returned the moment he was asked to act, and his “I will exert myself” came only after Victor’s rage had “intimidated” him, with no step named. Another calls it an honest promise: he listened “with attention and kindness”, his doubts are practical, the sea of ice and the months gone, and he says he will exert himself. The best answers notice that the reasons for doubt come from Victor’s own description of the creature, and that Victor heard the refusal before it was given.

What it asks It asks the student to weigh Victor’s own share against his hunt. Twice in the turn to revenge he names his part. Reflecting on the cause of his misfortunes, he names “the monster whom I had created, the miserable dæmon whom I had sent abroad into the world for my destruction.” Before the magistrate, in the speech where he calls revenge “a vice”, his rage is unspeakable when he reflects “that the murderer, whom I have turned loose upon society, still exists.” He calls on the magistrate’s duty, and then devotes himself, “either in my life or death, to his destruction.” The student builds a thesis on what a man who let a murderer loose owes, and to whom, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not say where the hunt leads, and must not reduce the question to a lesson that revenge is wrong.

One reading

He owes society, and the hunt is how he pays. He made the creature and set it loose, and he says so to a judge, not only to himself. The danger is to everyone still living, and the magistrate doubts the law can meet it, so the one who let it loose must. On this reading the vow “in my life or death” is the maker’s debt, and the hunt is closer to duty than to passion.

• the murderer, whom I have turned loose upon society, still exists.
• I devote myself, either in my life or death, to his destruction.

Another reading

In his own mind the debt runs the other way: the creature owes him. In the same breath that he names himself as maker, he names himself as the one wronged: the dæmon was sent abroad “for my destruction”, and the revenge is to fall on “his cursed head.” He tells the magistrate, “My revenge is of no moment to you”: the hunt is his own, owed to his own losses. The admission is real, but it becomes a reason to hate rather than a debt to anyone.

• the miserable dæmon whom I had sent abroad into the world for my destruction.
• revenge is of no moment to you;

Listen for

• Notices “for my destruction”: was the creature sent to destroy him, or is that only how it turned out?
• Hears him appeal to the magistrate’s “duty”, and then take the duty on himself: “I have but one resource”.
• Asks whether the debt is owed to the dead he names by Elizabeth’s body: William, Justine, Clerval and his wife.
• Weighs Victor’s own word, “a vice”, against the idea of a debt: can a man pay a debt with a vice?

If stuck

• In Victor’s own words, what did he do with the creature he made?
• Who is in danger while the creature is free?
• If you had let a danger loose, what would you owe, and to whom?

A strong answer A strong thesis says what Victor owes and to whom, and argues from his own words. A student might argue that he owes society: he tells a judge that the murderer is one “whom I have turned loose upon society”, and when the law doubts it can act, he takes the task on himself “in my life or death”. The strongest objection is that in his own mind the debt runs the other way: the dæmon was sent abroad “for my destruction”, all the rage goes to “his cursed head”, and he tells the magistrate, “My revenge is of no moment to you.” A good revision might grant that he owns the making, then ask whether a debt paid with what he himself calls “a vice” is owed to anyone but himself.

What it asks It asks the chapter’s whole question. On the wedding night Victor guarded his own life and sent Elizabeth away to spare her the fight; the blow fell on her, and then on his father. After months in “a solitary cell” he awakened to reason and to revenge together. Before the magistrate he tells his tale “with firmness and precision”, calls his revenge “a vice” and “the devouring and only passion of my soul”, and devotes himself to the creature’s destruction. Then he describes himself: “there was a frenzy in my manner, and something, I doubt not, of that haughty fierceness which the martyrs of old are said to have possessed.” To the magistrate, “this elevation of mind had much the appearance of madness.” The student builds a thesis on which it is, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not say where the hunt leads, and must not say that Victor is proven mad or proven sane: the chapter gives both the cell and the exact testimony. It must not make the magistrate a fool, and must not read “the martyrs of old” as proof of nobility while ignoring the “frenzy” in the same sentence.

One reading

A martyr’s devotion. Victor’s purpose is to rid society of a murderer the law doubts it can catch. He tells his tale in order, with dates, “never deviating into invective or exclamation.” He offers his own life, “either in my life or death”, to a task no one else will take up. The magistrate’s mind, he says, is occupied by “far other ideas than those of devotion and heroism”; to such a mind any devotion this complete would look like madness.

• never deviating into invective or exclamation.
• whose mind was occupied by far other ideas than those of devotion and heroism,

Another reading

The madness the magistrate sees. Victor himself allows that the revenge is “a vice” and calls it “the devouring and only passion of my soul.” He has just come from months in a cell because “they had called me mad”. He trembles, rage sparkles in his eyes, and he frightens the one man he came to for help. Even his own picture is mixed: “frenzy” comes before the martyrs, and their fierceness is “haughty”.

• while I allow it to be a vice, I confess that it is the devouring and only passion of my soul.
• there was a frenzy in my manner,

Listen for

• Notices that the martyr picture is Victor’s own, given as he tells the story, and hedged twice: “I doubt not” and “are said to have possessed”.
• Notices that the calm, exact testimony comes from the vow itself, “this purpose quieted my agony”: the calm that looks sane is fed by the passion that looks mad.
• Hears “so frightful an event is single in the history of man” beside “how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom!”: a man sure that no one has suffered as he has, telling the one man who might help that he cannot understand.
• Sets “Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated” beside “reconciled me to life”: revenge is what lets him bear to live.

If stuck

• In his own words to the magistrate, what does Victor say his revenge is?
• How does Victor tell his story, and how does he behave once the magistrate doubts him?
• What could make devotion to a cause look like madness to someone else?

A strong answer A strong thesis takes a side and earns it against the chapter’s own evidence. A student might argue that it is devotion: Victor tells his tale “with firmness and precision”, asks the law to protect society, and gives himself “either in my life or death” to a task no one else will take up, while the magistrate’s mind runs on “far other ideas than those of devotion and heroism”. The strongest objection is Victor’s own words: he calls the revenge “a vice” and “the devouring and only passion of my soul”, and his picture of himself sets “frenzy” and “haughty” beside the martyrs. A good revision might grant both the order of his testimony and the fire of his rage, then weigh what it means that the calm itself, by his own account, came from the vow.