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Frankenstein
Mountaineers · 10th–12th
Is the danger Victor warns of in the knowledge itself, or in the way he chased it?
The tension Victor pictures himself pouring “a torrent of light into our dark world” for a new species that “would bless me as its creator and source,” while the real work happens in his “workshop of filthy creation,” where, he admits, “often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation.”
What the work costs, season by season: a summer he never looks at, letters he never writes, a body grown pale and feverish, and the dream of a grateful new species that keeps him at it.
Two years of eager chemistry at Ingolstadt win Victor praise and keep him from Geneva. Just as he thinks of going home, an incident holds him, and he turns to the question of where life comes from. Days and nights among the dead end in a sudden light: he can give life to lifeless matter. He breaks off to warn his listener and keeps the method secret, then resolves to build a being like himself, about eight feet tall to save time. Through one summer, then a winter, a spring and another summer, he works alone in a cell at the top of the house, dreaming of a grateful new species while his father's letters go unanswered; the older Victor stops to moralize and is hurried on. By the time the leaves wither the work is nearly done, and Victor is pale, feverish and shunning people.
Read two short lines aloud, one from the vaults and one from the chapter's last paragraph: “Darkness had no effect upon my fancy” and “the fall of a leaf startled me”. Ask what happened to the man between them, and let the chapter answer. Keep the talk inside this chapter: the being is not yet alive, and the method stays Victor's secret.
Retell The student narrates the chapter in order, from the two years of study to the slow fever, then names the one sentence that matters most. Listen for the order of the seasons and for the places where the older Victor steps in to warn and to moralize.
Imitate the author After copying the rule, the student writes a short paragraph in its shape: a general rule, a claim that one pursuit is no exception, an “if” test, and a closing sentence that stacks examples from history or from the student's own reading.
Debate One side argues from Victor's rule that the danger lay in how he worked; the other argues from his warning about “the acquirement of knowledge” that it lay in what he learned. Each side must account for the dream of a grateful species and the “workshop of filthy creation”.
Purpose The habit is testing a speaker's warning against his own words and his own rule, and hearing the older narrator and the younger man as two voices, before judging what the chapter blames.
Easier Read the vault passage and the workshop passage aloud together. Talk through discussion questions 1 and 3, then have the student write a thesis and one objection for the last written question.
On level Talk through all six discussion questions, then have the student write both critical-thinking responses, each with a thesis, the strongest objection and a revision.
Harder Have the student test the final thesis against the copywork's history: does “America would have been discovered more gradually” fault discovery itself, or only its speed?
1. Victor finds the secret of life after “days and nights in vaults and charnel-houses.” The light breaks in on him “from the midst of this darkness”. Why might Shelley have the discovery of life come out of a place of death?Author's choice
What it asks Why Shelley lets the secret of life be found among the dead, and what that birthplace suggests about the knowledge Victor carries out of the vault.
The birthplace marks the knowledge: a secret drawn out of decay carries the grave in it, and the filth of the later work grows from it.
To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death.
the worm inherited the wonders of the eye and brain
The birthplace marks only the road: light breaking out of darkness is a hopeful image, and Victor's own simile turns the vault into a way back to life.
from the midst of this darkness a sudden light broke in upon me
I was like the Arabian who had been buried with the dead and found a passage to life
A strong answer A strong response notices that Shelley makes the secret of life rise out of the charnel-house: Victor must “have recourse to death”, and he watches as “the worm inherited the wonders of the eye and brain.” One reading says the birthplace stains the knowledge, so the light already carries the grave in it. Another hears hope in the image: the light breaks “from the midst of this darkness”, and Victor likens himself to the Arabian who “found a passage to life”. The best answers keep both readings in view and say which one the rest of the chapter bears out.
2. Before his discovery, Victor blamed “cowardice or carelessness” for holding people back from what they could find out. When he decides to make the being a giant to save time, is he being brave, or careless?Character
What it asks Whether the giant frame, chosen for speed, is the boldness Victor admires or the carelessness he named as inquiry's enemy.
Brave: he takes on a being as complex as a man, expects setbacks, and will not let the size of the task count as a reason not to try.
I prepared myself for a multitude of reverses
Nor could I consider the magnitude and complexity of my plan as any argument of its impracticability.
Careless: the small parts slow him, so he changes his plan to go faster, with the steps that led him here already forgotten.
As the minuteness of the parts formed a great hindrance to my speed, I resolved, contrary to my first intention, to make the being of a gigantic stature
all the steps by which I had been progressively led to it were obliterated, and I beheld only the result
A strong answer A strong response holds both of Victor's words up to the choice. Bravery fits the man who takes on a being “as complex and wonderful as man”, prepares for “a multitude of reverses” and will not let the size of the plan count as “any argument of its impracticability”. Carelessness fits the man who finds the small parts “a great hindrance to my speed” and changes his plan to go faster, when the steps that led him here are already “obliterated”. A careful answer might say he is brave about the task and careless about the making, or ask what it means that Victor once named carelessness as what holds inquiry back, and here it is what hurries him on.
3. Victor dreams of pouring “a torrent of light into our dark world.” Yet in his “workshop of filthy creation” he admits that “often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation”. What keeps him at work after his own nature turns against it?Inference
What it asks Why Victor goes on after his own nature recoils: what he says carried him, and whether his words describe a reason or a compulsion.
The dream keeps him going: the picture of light and of a grateful new species outweighs the loathing, so the promise of the work drives him.
These thoughts supported my spirits, while I pursued my undertaking with unremitting ardour.
A new species would bless me as its creator and source
The chase has taken over: he describes a force he no longer chooses, an eagerness that grows on its own.
still urged on by an eagerness which perpetually increased
a resistless and almost frantic impulse urged me forward
A strong answer A strong response starts from Victor's own account: “These thoughts supported my spirits,” he says, meaning the dream of light and of a species that “would bless me as its creator and source”. That reading puts the pull in the promise of the work. But he also describes something past reasons: “a resistless and almost frantic impulse”, an eagerness “which perpetually increased”, a “passing trance”. A careful answer might say the dream started him and the chase kept him, then ask whether calling it a trance explains his choice or excuses it.
4. Victor remembers his father's words: “I know that while you are pleased with yourself you will think of us with affection, and we shall hear regularly from you.” What does Victor's long silence suggest about how he felt about himself?Inference
What it asks To turn the father's test on his son: a pleased Victor would write home, so what his silence says about the state he was in.
By his father's own test, the silence shows a man not pleased with himself: the work he cannot leave is loathsome to him, and he watches himself become a wreck.
I could not tear my thoughts from my employment, loathsome in itself, but which had taken an irresistible hold of my imagination
Sometimes I grew alarmed at the wreck I perceived that I had become
The test does not fit him: he is pleased, even rapturous, and expects more thanks than any father is owed; the silence shows only that one object has swallowed every other habit, which is why he first thought it unjust to put his neglect down to a fault in him.
No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs.
I wished, as it were, to procrastinate all that related to my feelings of affection until the great object, which swallowed up every habit of my nature, should be completed.
A strong answer A strong response takes the father's words as a test and runs Victor through it. A son pleased with himself writes home; Victor does not, and the chapter backs the test: the work is “loathsome in itself”, and he grows “alarmed at the wreck I perceived that I had become”. Another reading says the test does not fit him: he is full of “delight and rapture”, expects gratitude no father could claim “so completely”, and goes silent only because one object has “swallowed up every habit of my nature”, which is why he first thought it “unjust” to put his neglect down to a fault in him. The sharpest answers notice that the older Victor now calls his father “justified”, and ask what he has come to see about the man he was.
5. Right after his examples of Greece, Caesar, and Mexico and Peru, Victor breaks off. “But I forget that I am moralizing in the most interesting part of my tale,” he says, “and your looks remind me to proceed.” Why would the man giving this warning still call this stretch of his story “the most interesting part”?Tone
What it asks What the older Victor's own words show about how far he has come from the passion he warns against, and what his listener's eager looks have to do with it.
The pull has not left him: even the ruined man finds this stretch of his life the most interesting, so the danger is still alive in the telling.
But I forget that I am moralizing in the most interesting part of my tale
My limbs now tremble, and my eyes swim with the remembrance
He is a storyteller reading his audience: “interesting” means gripping, and he cuts the sermon short because his listener's eagerness, like his own once, will not wait.
your looks remind me to proceed
I see by your eagerness and the wonder and hope which your eyes express
A strong answer A strong response hears both Victors in one sentence. The older man has just backed his rule with Greece, Caesar, and Mexico and Peru, yet he calls this stretch of his story “the most interesting part of my tale,” as if its spell still holds. Another reading takes him as a teller who sees his listener's eager looks and gives him the story he wants. Either way, the listener's eagerness cuts short a lesson about passion. A careful answer asks whether that weakens the warning or proves it.
6. In the last months, Victor recalls, “the fall of a leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime.” What crime, if any, has Victor committed by this point?Moral reasoning
What it asks Whether Victor's guilt points to a real wrong, and which of the chapter's acts, if any, it attaches to.
He has done real wrong on the way: graves disturbed, animals tortured, a worried family neglected. The guilt is earned.
tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay
disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame
I knew my silence disquieted them
He has committed no crime yet: “as if” marks guilt without a crime, the strain of a secret kept too long and alone.
I shunned my fellow creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime
In a solitary chamber, or rather cell, at the top of the house
A strong answer A strong response takes “as if” seriously. Victor shunned people “as if I had been guilty of a crime”, which can mean he had committed none. Yet the chapter records acts that look like wrongs: he disturbed the dead “with profane fingers”, “tortured the living animal”, and left his family's worry unanswered. A careful answer says which of these, if any, counts as a crime, and whether Victor's own “as if” clears him or condemns him.
1. Victor's rule says that a study which “has a tendency to weaken your affections” is “certainly unlawful”. By that rule, when did his own study first become wrong?
What it asks To apply Victor's rule to his own story and find the moment he first broke it, using the rule's own test: what a study does to the affections.
From the start: two years of ordinary chemistry already kept him from home, long before the secret of life.
Two years passed in this manner, during which I paid no visit to Geneva
the stars often disappeared in the light of morning whilst I was yet engaged in my laboratory
Only later: the early years still left him thinking of home, and the rule breaks when the great object swallows his affections.
I thought of returning to my friends and my native town
but I could not tear my thoughts from my employment
which swallowed up every habit of my nature
A strong answer A strong thesis might say the rule was broken in the first two years, when Victor “paid no visit to Geneva” and worked until the stars “disappeared in the light of morning”. The best objection is that he still “thought of returning to my friends and my native town” before “an incident” held him, so his affections were not yet weakened. A revision could place the break where the great object “swallowed up every habit of my nature” and he chose to “procrastinate” his affection. Whatever moment the student picks, the strongest revisions notice that the rule speaks of a study's “tendency”, and say what that word implies.
2. Victor tells his listener to learn from his example “how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge”. Is the danger Victor warns of in the knowledge itself, or in the way he chased it?
What it asks The chapter's big question: whether Victor's warning blames what he learned or how he learned it, tested against the grateful species he dreams of and the workshop he calls filthy.
The knowledge itself: the secret is more than a human being can safely hold, which is why Victor names the acquirement of knowledge and will not pass the secret on.
how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge
he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow
I will not lead you on, unguarded and ardent as I then was, to your destruction and infallible misery.
The way he chased it: his own rule condemns any study that weakens the affections, and the chapter shows haste, secrecy and neglect wearing him down.
I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule.
the minuteness of the parts formed a great hindrance to my speed
I kept my workshop of filthy creation
A strong answer One strong thesis says the danger lies in the chase: Victor's rule judges a study by what it does to the affections, he says “the pursuit of knowledge” is no exception, and the chapter shows him trading care for speed, working alone in a cell and leaving his father unanswered. The strongest objection is his own warning, which names “the acquirement of knowledge” and the man who “aspires to become greater than his nature will allow”, and his refusal to pass the secret on at all. A revision might hold that he fears a kind of knowledge that, by its nature, pulls its seeker into such a chase. Another student could argue the reverse with equal care, starting from the warning and answering the rule.
I was like the Arabian who had been buried with the dead and found a passage to life, aided only by one glimmering and seemingly ineffectual light.Too weak to do what is needed. Here the light only seems so: faint as it is, it shows the Arabian a way out from among the dead.
These thoughts supported my spirits, while I pursued my undertaking with unremitting ardour.Never easing off, not even for a moment (to remit is to slacken). It names how hard Victor drives himself.
It was indeed but a passing trance, that only made me feel with renewed acuteness so soon as, the unnatural stimulus ceasing to operate, I had returned to my old habits.Something that rouses a body or mind to act. Here the “unnatural stimulus” is the frantic drive itself; once it stops acting on him, the old feelings return, sharper than before.
I then thought that my father would be unjust if he ascribed my neglect to vice or faultiness on my part, but I am now convinced that he was justified in conceiving that I should not be altogether free from blame.Put something down to a cause; credited or blamed it. Kin to scribe and describe. Here: putting Victor's neglect down to a fault in his character.
A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquillity.Lasting only a short time; passing. In Victor's rule, even a passing desire must not be let in to unsettle a calm mind.
If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind.A cheaper metal mixed into a precious one. Here, anything base that, mixed into a pleasure, would spoil it; the simple pleasures admit none.