Chapter 6 — Teaching Companion

This chapter's big question

Is Victor's joy at the end of this chapter a real healing, or a way of not looking at what he did?

The tension Waldman praises Victor's progress “with kindness and warmth,” and Victor feels it as torture: “He meant to please, and he tormented me.” Because Victor “dared not exhibit the pain I felt,” a kind teacher cannot see what his praise is doing.

Today's focus

What each person gives Victor (Elizabeth a letter, Clerval company and tact, Waldman and Krempe their praise) and what none of those gifts can reach.

The shape at a glance

A letter from home, then a recovery told in scenes. Elizabeth writes of a steady Geneva, Justine's history and little William. Victor's first visits to Waldman and Krempe turn praise into pain, with Clerval shielding him. The two friends take up Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit, and a spring walk ends the chapter on a Sunday of dancing and high spirits. Victor's secret is never named; the pages show what he is given and what he avoids.

A way in

Begin with the narration, then have the student read the two copywork passages aloud, one after the other, and say which sounds more sure. Hold the big question for the written part. The discussion questions let the student gather evidence on both sides first.

Lesson plan

Retell The student tells back the chapter from Elizabeth's letter to the Sunday return, then picks the moment that matters most and says what it changes.

Imitate the author The student copies both passages, then reads them aloud and listens to the two pairs in the last sentence of the second: “cramped and narrowed” and “warmed and opened.” A short imitation of that pairing, about a person held back and then freed, makes a good follow-up.

Debate Split the talk on the written questions. One side argues that Victor's own account of his trouble is complete, the other that it is not. Then both turn to the big question and answer each other's best evidence.

Purpose The student practises weighing a narrator's account of his own recovery against the scenes around it, and revising a thesis when an objection lands.

Three levels

Easier Split the reading in two: Elizabeth's letter and the visits to the professors, then the languages, the walk and the Sunday. Talk each part through aloud before any writing, and let the student give a thesis and one quotation aloud before putting it on paper.

On level The student answers the discussion questions aloud with a quotation for each, then writes the two Mountaineers pieces: a thesis, the strongest objection to it, and a revision. The last piece answers the big question.

Harder Ask the student to write the strongest objection to their own final thesis from the other side's best quotation, then revise. A further step: compare how Elizabeth's letter tells its griefs openly with how Victor holds one back, and what that contrast does to the chapter.

Discussion

1. Elizabeth tells Victor, who has been very ill, that home is as steady as the lake and mountains that “never change.” Is a home that never changes a comfort to Victor now, or a hard place to come back to?Inference

What it asks It asks whether the steady, unchanged home Elizabeth paints is a comfort to Victor after his illness and the night he will not speak of, or a hard place for him to come back to.

A strong answer A strong answer might call home a comfort: Elizabeth promises “a happy, cheerful home,” Victor answers at once, “I will write instantly,” and later he longs “to see my native town.” It might instead call it a hard place to come back to: a household of “contented hearts” and “none but happy, kind faces,” whose calm waits on “one word” from him, has no room for the event he “could never persuade” himself to tell even Clerval. A careful answer may notice that a home where little has altered waits for the Victor who left. Either way it builds from this chapter and does not guess at what home holds later.

2. Elizabeth says grief left Justine “much altered.” It gave her “softness and a winning mildness” where she had once been lively. Is that change a loss, or something gained?Theme

What it asks It asks the student to weigh what grief took from Justine against what Elizabeth says it gave her, and to judge whether the change is a loss or a gain.

A strong answer A strong answer might call the change a loss: the girl who once looked “so frank-hearted and happy” has wept, been ill and lost her family, and her mother's house could not “restore her gaiety.” It might instead call it a gain, since Elizabeth says grief “had given” Justine “softness and a winning mildness,” and the gentle girl who comes home is loved “tenderly” and recalls the aunt she nursed. A careful answer may hold both and say that Justine comes through grief changed, not returned to who she was. Either way it stays with what the letter reports.

3. As Waldman praises him, Victor feels as if Waldman were setting out, “one by one,” the instruments of “a slow and cruel death.” Why might kind praise of his progress feel like that?Character

What it asks It asks why Waldman's warm praise of Victor's progress feels to him like watching the instruments of a slow death laid out, and what the image shows the praise doing to him.

A strong answer A strong answer might say the praise undoes Clerval's care: Clerval had taken the apparatus out of Victor's sight, and Waldman's talk of his “astonishing progress” sets the instruments back “in my view,” one by one. It could also hear the torture in what Victor cannot do: he “dared not exhibit the pain,” so he must sit through a kindness that goes on, slow and polite, with no way to stop it. Either reading can notice that Waldman “meant to please” and never learns what his words are doing.

4. Victor says Clerval was always quick to see what others were feeling. Yet Clerval never tries to draw out Victor's secret. Why might a friend who sees so much ask so little?Character

What it asks It asks why a friend so quick to see what others feel never asks Victor what is wrong, and what that restraint does and does not do for Victor.

A strong answer A strong answer might say Clerval's restraint is part of his sharp eye: he sees Victor's pain, reads that a question would add to it, and lets Victor keep his silence while Victor thanks him “from my heart.” It might instead say Clerval's gift runs toward cheer, since he never shared Victor's taste for natural science and steers hard moments toward “a more general turn” or a tale to amuse. Either answer can notice that his tact shields Victor without ever learning why, and leave open whether that is enough.

5. Victor joins Clerval in studying Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit at a time when he “wished to fly from reflection.” He says the writers' “melancholy is soothing.” Why might sadness in a book soothe a man who wants to escape his own thoughts?Tone

What it asks It asks why a literature of longing and sorrow would comfort a man who is running from his thoughts, and whether the comfort lets him feel or lets him hide.

A strong answer A strong answer might say that sadness in a book is safe: the “fair enemy” and the burning heart belong to a world of “a warm sun and a garden of roses,” far from Victor's own, so he can feel without being reminded. It might also take Victor at his word that the books soothe and console him, and say that being comforted is not the same as hiding. The student can weigh the two readings without settling whether comfort and flight can be one act.

Critical thinking

1. Looking back on the walk, Victor says a “selfish pursuit” had “cramped and narrowed” him, until Clerval “warmed and opened” his senses. How well does that explain what was wrong with him?

What it asks It asks the student to test Victor's own account of his trouble against the rest of the chapter, and to say what the account covers and what it does not.

A strong answer A strong answer might open with a thesis such as: Victor's account explains his isolation well but does not name what weighed on him. The evidence is the pairs “cramped and narrowed” and “warmed and opened,” which describe closing and opening, set against “the fatal night” and “that event,” which describe something that happened. The strongest objection is that the walk really does open him, so the account may be as much as a friend needs to hear. A revision could narrow the thesis to say the account is true of what the pursuit did to him and says nothing yet of its cause.

2. The chapter ends on a Sunday afternoon. The peasants are dancing, and Victor bounds along in “unbridled joy and hilarity.” Is Victor's joy at the end of this chapter a real healing, or a way of not looking at what he did?

What it asks It asks the student to judge, from this chapter alone, whether Victor's gladness rests on something mended or on something put out of sight, and to say which words decide it.

A strong answer A strong answer takes a side and builds it from Victor's own words. A thesis for healing can rest on “Clerval called forth the better feelings of my heart” and the open, social Victor of the walk; the strongest objection is that he took up new studies to “fly from reflection” and never speaks of what troubles him. A thesis for avoidance can rest on that objection; the strongest reply is that the joy on the walk is plainly felt and shared. The revision should say what the chapter proves, which is Victor's state at the end of this walk, and should not guess at what comes after.

Vocabulary definitions