Chapter 24 — Teaching Companion

What it asks It asks the student to stand inside a belief Victor will not question. At the graves he called on “spirits of the dead” and “wandering ministers of vengeance” to “aid and conduct me in my work.” On the chase, when hunger overcomes him, “a repast was prepared for me in the desert”, plain fare “such as the peasants of the country ate”, and he writes, “I will not doubt that it was set there by the spirits that I had invoked to aid me.” The same pages carry the creature’s carved notes, one of which tells him where to find “a dead hare; eat and be refreshed”, and Victor’s own report that the creature sometimes left a mark to guide him. The student decides what doubt would take from Victor. The card must not say the food surely came from spirits or surely from the creature: the chapter gives Victor’s belief and the creature’s notes and leaves the reader to weigh them.

One reading

His sense that the hunt is holy. Victor swore his vow by the night and its spirits and asked the dead to guide him. The meals, the rain from a passing cloud and the dreams of his friends are, to him, signs that heaven and the dead are on his side. He pursues his enemy, he says, “as a task enjoined by heaven”. If he doubted, the hunt would be one man’s hatred and nothing more.

• a task enjoined by heaven,
• I will not doubt that it was set there by the spirits that I had invoked to aid me.

Another reading

His freedom from his enemy. The creature’s own note tells Victor where food is waiting: “a dead hare; eat and be refreshed.” If the meals might come from the same hand, then the creature is keeping his hunter alive, and the chase is the creature’s game: “you live, and my power is complete.” A man who has sworn to live only to destroy his enemy cannot easily bear to owe that enemy his life.

• a dead hare; eat and be refreshed.
• you live, and my power is complete.

Listen for

• Notices that “I will not doubt” is a choice, not a finding: the words admit there is something to doubt.
• Notices that the fare is “such as the peasants of the country ate”, plain human food, and weighs what kind of spirit cooks peasant fare.
• Hears Victor say the creature left marks because he “feared that if I lost all trace of him I should despair and die”, and asks how Victor can know what his enemy fears.
• Sets this beside Walton’s later remark that Victor believes the friends in his dreams are “the beings themselves”: the listener notices the faith too, and finds it “almost as imposing and interesting as truth.”

If stuck

• What does Victor ask the spirits to do at the graves?
• What does the creature’s note about the hare tell Victor to do?
• If your worst enemy were keeping you alive, how would you want to explain it?

A strong answer A strong response names what doubt would take away and grounds it in the chase. One reader says doubt would cost Victor the holiness of his hunt: he swore by the night and its spirits, he follows his enemy “as a task enjoined by heaven”, and the meals are his proof that the dead are with him. Another says doubt would cost him his freedom from his enemy: the creature’s own note leads him to “a dead hare”, and if the meals might come from the same hand, the hunter lives by the gift of the hunted. The best answers notice that “I will not doubt” admits a doubt, and leave the source of the food unsettled, as the chapter does.

What it asks It asks the student to notice that the tale Walton sends home has passed through Victor’s hands. Victor asked to see the notes and “corrected and augmented them in many places, but principally in giving the life and spirit to the conversations he held with his enemy”, saying, “I would not that a mutilated one should go down to posterity.” Those conversations hold the creature’s own words. The same Victor, at the end of his tale, warns Walton that his enemy is “eloquent and persuasive” and tells him, “Hear him not”. The student decides why the talks with the enemy are what Victor works on most. The card must not say Victor falsified the record: the chapter says he corrected and added, not what he changed. It must not treat Victor’s words as the author speaking.

One reading

To be fair, and to be believed. The talks are the strangest part of the tale and the hardest to credit: a being Victor made, speaking for itself. Victor wants posterity to have the whole record, not “a mutilated one”, and he gives the creature’s words their “life and spirit” even though he hates the speaker. A man who restores his enemy’s speeches to their full force is keeping faith with the truth.

• I would not that a mutilated one should go down to posterity.
• principally in giving the life and spirit to the conversations he held with his enemy.

Another reading

Because those talks are where his enemy could win. They are the one place in the tale where the creature speaks for himself, and Victor knows what his words can do: “once his words had even power over my heart”. Whoever sets down the creature’s speeches shapes how he will be judged. The man who tells Walton “Hear him not” is also the man who checked what the creature said.

• once his words had even power over my heart;
• Hear him not;

Listen for

• Notices “corrected and augmented”: he added as well as fixed, and the chapter does not say what.
• Notices that the same Victor will not tell Walton how the creature was made: “Learn my miseries and do not seek to increase your own.” He holds one part of the record back and shapes another.
• Weighs “go down to posterity”: Victor is thinking of readers to come, not only of Walton.
• Notices that in the cabin, at the end, Walton hears the creature with no one between them.

If stuck

• What does Victor do with Walton’s notes?
• Which parts of the notes does he work on most?
• If someone wrote down a quarrel you once had, which parts would you most want to check?

A strong answer A strong response gives a reason and grounds it in what Victor says and does with the notes. One reader says he wants the record whole and fair: he will not leave “a mutilated one” to posterity, and he gives the creature’s words their “life and spirit” though he hates the speaker. Another says the talks are where his enemy could win, since “once his words had even power over my heart”, and the man who warns “Hear him not” is the one who checked the creature’s speeches. The best answers notice that the chapter says he “corrected and augmented” the notes without saying what he changed, and that Walton later hears the creature with no one in between.

What it asks It asks the student to hear a dying man’s last advice through the ears of the man it is given to. Days before, Victor, who had seemed too weak even to listen, roused himself to shame the sailors who wanted to turn back: “Be men, or be more than men.” Two days later Walton gave way to the crew, writing, “Thus are my hopes blasted by cowardice and indecision”. Now, with the ship free and heading south, Victor tells him, “Seek happiness in tranquillity and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries.” At once he asks, “Yet why do I say this? I have myself been blasted in these hopes, yet another may succeed.” The student decides how that advice would sound to Walton. The card must not shrink the ending to a warning against ambition, and must not treat Victor’s dying words as the author speaking. It must not say that Walton turns back because he has learned from Victor: he gave his word to the crew before this speech, and he yields only to them.

One reading

As comfort. The ship is already turning home, and Walton has called his return cowardice. Now the dying man he admires most tells him to seek “tranquillity” and to avoid the very hope Walton set out with, the wish to distinguish himself in “science and discoveries”. The warning gives his forced return a better name than the one he gave it.

• Seek happiness in tranquillity and avoid ambition,
• Thus are my hopes blasted by cowardice and indecision;

Another reading

As a sting. Walton has just written that he has lost his “hopes of utility and glory”. Victor’s last word is not the warning but the hope: “another may succeed.” Days before, the same man told the sailors that a voyage is glorious because it is “full of dangers and terror”. He reminds Walton that the road is still open, to someone else.

• yet another may succeed.
• Be men, or be more than men.

Listen for

• Hears “apparently innocent”: Victor names Walton’s own hope, discovery, as an ambition that only looks harmless.
• Sets the advice beside the speech to the sailors and asks whether dying has changed Victor’s mind, or only his advice.
• Notices that earlier in the same speech Victor said, “I dare not ask you to do what I think right, for I may still be misled by passion”: the advice comes from a man who doubts his own judgment.
• Hears the shared word: Walton wrote that his hopes were “blasted by cowardice and indecision”, and now Victor says he has “been blasted in these hopes”. Both men’s hopes have failed, in different ways.

If stuck

• Why is Walton’s ship heading home?
• What does Victor tell Walton to avoid, and what does he say right after?
• If you had just given up on a dream, how would it feel to hear that “another may succeed”?

A strong answer A strong response says how the advice would sound to Walton and earns it from the last letters. One reader hears comfort: the ship is already turning home, Walton calls his return “cowardice and indecision”, and the dying man he admires tells him to “avoid ambition”, naming Walton’s own hope of “distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries”. Another hears a sting: Walton has lost his “hopes of utility and glory”, and Victor’s last word is “another may succeed”, from the man who told the sailors, “Be men, or be more than men.” The best answers notice that Walton turned back for the crew, not for Victor, and weigh the advice beside Victor’s admission that passion may still mislead him.

What it asks It asks the student to weigh one short sentence. Dying, Victor asked Walton to kill the creature if it appeared, though he left “the well balancing of what you may esteem your duties” to Walton. At midnight Walton walks in on the creature hanging over the coffin; hearing him, the creature springs towards the window. Walton shuts his eyes, “endeavoured to recollect what were my duties with regard to this destroyer”, and writes, “I called on him to stay.” The creature pauses, “looking on me with wonder”. Later Walton says his “first impulses”, the duty of destroying his friend’s enemy, “were now suspended by a mixture of curiosity and compassion.” The student decides what the call was for. The card must not offer a settled verdict on the creature.

One reading

To keep his promise. Walton has just tried to recall his duty, and the duty his dying friend gave him was to destroy this enemy. A man who means to obey that request stops the enemy from escaping out of the window. His “first impulses”, he says later, pointed to “the duty of obeying the dying request of my friend”.

• endeavoured to recollect what were my duties with regard to this destroyer.
• my first impulses, which had suggested to me the duty of obeying the dying request of my friend in destroying his enemy,

Another reading

To hear him. Walton has spent a week on “the strangest tale that ever imagination formed”, and he cannot let its last speaker leave unheard. The duty he recalls may be wider than Victor’s request, since Victor left the weighing of duties to him. When the creature stays, Walton does not strike; he listens, held by “curiosity and compassion”.

• the well balancing of what you may esteem your duties,
• suspended by a mixture of curiosity and compassion.

Listen for

• Notices that Walton shuts his eyes before he speaks: he cannot look at the face, and decides without it.
• Hears “with wonder”: the creature does not expect to be asked to stay.
• Notices that no weapon appears in the scene, though Victor told Walton to “thrust your sword into his heart.”
• Notices that Walton tries to speak and “the words died away on my lips”: when he finds words at last, he passes judgment, telling the creature his repentance is “now superfluous.”

If stuck

• What did Victor ask Walton to do if the creature appeared?
• What does the creature do when he hears Walton come in?
• Why might someone ask a person they fear to stay?

A strong answer A strong response names a purpose and grounds it in the cabin. One reader says Walton calls him to stay so he can keep his promise, since the duty he has just tried to recall is the one his friend gave him, “destroying his enemy”. Another says he calls him to stay to hear him: Victor left the weighing of duties to Walton, and once the creature stays, Walton is held by “curiosity and compassion”, not by the sword. The best answers notice that he speaks with his eyes shut, and that no weapon ever appears.

What it asks It asks the student to weigh a line that seems to hurt the speaker’s own case. Walton has just told the creature that his repentance is “now superfluous”. The creature answers with his history: after Clerval’s murder he pitied Victor and “abhorred myself”; learning that Victor hoped for happiness, he “recollected my threat and resolved that it should be accomplished”; he was “the slave, not the master, of an impulse which I detested yet could not disobey.” Then: “Yet when she died! Nay, then I was not miserable. I had cast off all feeling, subdued all anguish, to riot in the excess of my despair. Evil thenceforth became my good.” The student decides why he would tell Walton this. The card must not offer a settled verdict as the book’s meaning, such as that the creature is the true monster or the true victim, and must not treat the creature’s words as the author speaking.

One reading

To be believed. A speaker pleading for pity would leave that line out. Walton has just called his repentance useless, and the creature answers with something that makes him look worse, not better. He is not shaping his story to win Walton over, and soon he says so: he does not ask Walton to share his misery.

• Yet when she died! Nay, then I was not miserable.
• Yet I seek not a fellow feeling in my misery.

Another reading

To make his case. The line sits between “the slave, not the master” and “Evil thenceforth became my good.” It marks the moment he says misery had driven him past feeling. Told this way, his worst moment becomes proof of how far he was pushed, and that is the story he wants Walton to accept.

• I was the slave, not the master, of an impulse which I detested yet could not disobey.
• Evil thenceforth became my good.

Listen for

• Notices whom he is answering: Walton has just told him his repentance is “now superfluous”, and this whole speech is his reply.
• Hears the next sentence pull two ways: he “had no choice” but to adapt to an element he had “willingly chosen”.
• Notices that he never says Elizabeth’s name, only “when she died”: he speaks to a man who already knows the tale from Victor.
• Sets the line beside the grief Walton walked in on: the being who felt nothing when Elizabeth died was crying out over her husband’s body.

If stuck

• Whose death does the creature mean when he says “when she died”?
• What does he say he had done to his feelings by then?
• When someone tells you the worst thing about themselves, do you trust them more or less?

A strong answer A strong response gives a reason and grounds it in the speech. One reader says he tells it to be believed: a speaker pleading for pity would leave the line out, and he says plainly, “I seek not a fellow feeling in my misery.” Another says the line serves his case: set between “the slave, not the master” and “Evil thenceforth became my good”, it marks the moment misery drove him past feeling, which is the story he wants Walton to accept. The best answers notice that he is answering Walton’s charge that his repentance is “now superfluous”, and that the next sentence calls his path both forced and “willingly chosen”.

What it asks It asks the student to notice where the book ends. The creature tells Walton he will leave on the ice raft, “seek the most northern extremity of the globe”, build his “funeral pile” and “consume to ashes this miserable frame”, so that no “curious and unhallowed wretch” can learn from his remains to make another. “I shall die,” he says. Then he springs from the cabin window onto the raft and “was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance.” That is the book’s last sentence. The student decides what the book would give up if it showed the fire. The card must not say that the creature does burn himself or die.

One reading

The doubt. Everything the creature says about his end is a promise, and the book gives no proof. Victor warned that he is “eloquent and persuasive”; the creature tells Walton, “Fear not that I shall be the instrument of future mischief.” A fire on the page would settle his word. Stopping in the dark leaves the reader where Walton is, with a speech and no way to check it.

• Fear not that I shall be the instrument of future mischief.
• lost in darkness and distance.

Another reading

The vanishing he asks for. The creature wants no remains and no memory: his ashes “swept into the sea by the winds”, and “the very remembrance of us both will speedily vanish.” To show the fire would keep one last picture of him. The book lets him go out of sight, the way he wants to go out of the world.

• the very remembrance of us both will speedily vanish.
• my ashes will be swept into the sea by the winds.

Listen for

• Notices that the last sight is Walton’s, at midnight, from a ship: the book ends where its witness can no longer see.
• Notices that Victor died fearing his enemy “may still be in being”: the ending neither ends that fear nor proves it.
• Hears “triumphantly” and “exult” in the creature’s picture of the pyre, and asks what kind of death he is imagining.
• Weighs his reason for the fire, that his remains “may afford no light” to another maker, beside Victor’s silence about how the creature was made.

If stuck

• What does the creature say he will do when he leaves the ship?
• What is the last thing Walton sees?
• If the book showed the fire, what would you know that you do not know now?

A strong answer A strong response names what showing the fire would take away and grounds it in the last pages. One reader says it would take away the doubt: all we have is his promise not to be “the instrument of future mischief”, and the book ends where Walton ends, with a speech and no proof. Another says it would take away the vanishing the creature asks for, his ashes “swept into the sea” and “the very remembrance of us both” gone, so the book lets him pass out of sight. The best answers notice that the book stops where its witness can no longer see, and do not claim the fire took place.

What it asks It asks the student to judge the judge. When Walton hopes to hold Victor to life with “new ties and fresh affections”, Victor answers that no one can replace the friends he has lost: “the companions of our childhood” know “our infantine dispositions” and judge “with more certain conclusions as to the integrity of our motives.” He says it to explain why no new friend can keep him alive, but it names what Walton lacks. Walton has listened to Victor for weeks and loves him; he meets the creature once, at midnight, over that friend’s coffin. Yet he also tests what he hears: he tells Margaret that Victor’s tale convinced him less than “the letters of Felix and Safie” and the monster seen from the ship. The student builds a thesis on how good a judge Walton can be, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not say which account Walton should trust, since that is the last question. It must not say that Walton turns back because he has learned from Victor, and must not treat Victor’s words as the author speaking.

One reading

A poor one. By Victor’s own measure, Walton knows neither speaker’s motives: he has no years with either. Nor is he a stranger to both. He longed for a friend and found one in Victor, and he mourns him as a “glorious spirit”. He meets the creature at midnight, over that friend’s body. A judge who loves one party and meets the other over the coffin cannot weigh them evenly.

• I have longed for a friend;
• the untimely extinction of this glorious spirit?

Another reading

A better one than Victor’s rule allows. Walton does not take a tale on trust. Victor’s word, however earnest, convinced him less than things he could hold or see: the letters and the monster seen from the ship. And by Victor’s own account, old friends have “a certain power over our minds”. A judge new to both men is free of that hold, at least with the creature.

• brought to me a greater conviction of the truth of his narrative than his asseverations, however earnest and connected.
• the companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds

Listen for

• Notices why Victor says it: Walton has spoken of new friendship, and Victor asks, “Can any man be to me as Clerval was”. The rule is his reason for refusing a new friend, not advice to a judge.
• Notices that the rule cuts both ways: Walton can no more vouch for Victor’s motives than for the creature’s.
• Hears “an appearance of the simplest truth”: Walton knows that a tale can look true and still need testing.
• Hears the creature test Walton’s standard: “Why do you not hate Felix, who drove his friend from his door with contumely?”

If stuck

• Why does Victor say no new friend can replace his old ones?
• How long has Walton known each of the two speakers?
• Who would you want to judge a quarrel between you and someone else: an old friend, or a stranger?

A strong answer A strong thesis says how good a judge Walton can be and argues it from the letters. A student might argue he is a poor one: by Victor’s own measure he knows neither man’s motives, he longed for a friend and found one in Victor, and he meets the creature at midnight over that friend’s coffin. The strongest objection is that Walton tests what he hears: Victor’s word, “however earnest and connected”, convinced him less than the letters of Felix and Safie and the monster seen from the ship, and being new to the creature frees him from the hold old friends have over the mind. A good revision might grant that Walton weighs evidence well where there is evidence to weigh, then ask what he has to go on in the cabin, where there is only a speech.

What it asks It asks the book’s closing question. Walton has listened to Victor for a week and kept notes that Victor corrected. Dying, Victor says he has been examining his past conduct, “nor do I find it blamable”: he owed the creature its happiness, but his duty to his own species was “still paramount”, so “I did right in refusing” to make a companion, and the creature “ought to die.” In the same speech he says his judgment is “already disturbed by the near approach of death” and that he “may still be misled by passion.” Then the creature, over the body, calls Victor “my victim” and a “Generous and self-devoted being!”, says he suffered more in his crimes than Victor did, asks “Am I to be thought the only criminal”, grants “it is true that I am a wretch”, and tells Walton, “You hate me, but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself.” Walton is “at first touched”, then remembers Victor’s warning and cries “Hypocritical fiend!” The student builds a thesis on whose account deserves more trust, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not offer a settled verdict as the book’s meaning, must not treat either speaker as the author, and must not say that the creature burns himself or dies.

One reading

Victor’s. He speaks at the edge of death with nothing left to gain, and he weighs his duties aloud: to the creature, and to “the beings of my own species”, which he ranks higher. He even names his own earlier bias, “selfish and vicious motives”. And he warned Walton beforehand that the creature is “eloquent and persuasive”. A moving speech of self-reproach over the body is just what such a speaker could be expected to give.

• I refused, and I did right in refusing, to create a companion for the first creature.
• He is eloquent and persuasive,

Another reading

The creature’s. He blames himself, where Victor finds no fault in his own conduct: “I have murdered the lovely and the helpless”. He was crying out over the body before he knew anyone could hear, and stopped when Walton came in. He asks Walton for nothing: “I seek not a fellow feeling in my misery.” And he gives Walton what Victor’s tale could not: what it was to be the one refused, “still I desired love and fellowship, and I was still spurned.”

• your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself.
• When he heard the sound of my approach, he ceased to utter exclamations of grief and horror

Listen for

• Notices that Victor doubts his own judgment, “I may still be misled by passion”, in the same speech that finds his conduct not “blamable”.
• Notices that Walton’s “Hypocritical fiend!” comes only after he calls to mind “what Frankenstein had said of his powers of eloquence and persuasion”: a judge warned in advance.
• Hears the creature grant Walton’s view before answering it: “Yet such must be the impression conveyed to you by what appears to be the purport of my actions.”
• Weighs where the two accounts agree, that the creature did the killings, and where they part: what he felt, and what was owed to him.

If stuck

• What does Victor say when he looks back on his own conduct?
• What does the creature say about how he regards himself?
• When two people tell you the same events, what makes you trust one more?

A strong answer A strong thesis chooses an account and weighs it against the other. A student might argue for Victor: dying, with nothing to gain, he ranks his duties aloud, holds that “I did right in refusing”, and warns in advance that his enemy is “eloquent and persuasive”. The strongest objection is that Victor admits his judgment is “disturbed” and that he “may still be misled by passion”, while the creature blames himself more than anyone else does, “your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself”, and was grieving before he knew Walton could hear. A good revision might give one account more trust on some points and the other on others, then say which points matter most, remembering that the book ends with the creature’s promise still unchecked.