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Frankenstein
Mountaineers · 10th–12th
Victor says Justine’s tortures “did not equal mine”. Is his suffering the greater one?
The tension Two confessions face each other: Justine confesses to a murder she did not commit, pressed by her confessor until she “almost began to think that I was the monster that he said I was”, while Victor, who says he would gladly have taken the crime on himself, finds that “my purposed avowal died away on my lips.”
How guilt is read from the outside: a calm face held on purpose, a confused answer to a market-woman, a jewel in a pocket, and a confession pressed out of a frightened woman.
The chapter moves from the courtroom to the cell to the scaffold: the witnesses and Justine’s defense, Elizabeth’s appeal and the black ballots, the news of the confession, the cell where Justine takes it back, and Victor’s lament over two graves. Victor tells it as someone who believes Justine innocent, believes he knows who killed William, and never tells what he suspects.
Open with the copywork. Ask the student to read Justine’s words aloud and say which sentence is hardest for her to say. Her account of the confession is then in hand when the talk turns to how the court read her.
Retell The student tells back the chapter from the morning of the trial to the day Justine dies, then names the moment that matters most and what it changes.
Imitate the author The student copies Justine’s account of her confession, then reads it aloud, listening for where her sentences run long, where one stops short (“What could I do?”) and where the last one turns.
Debate The student moves from the discussion into the written questions: first whether Victor’s fear of being thought mad excuses his silence, then how his claim about his own pain stands beside what Justine goes through. Each answer gives a thesis, meets the strongest objection and revises.
Purpose To see how a court, and a narrator, read guilt and grief from the outside, and to practice testing a speaker’s claim about himself against what the chapter shows of others.
Easier Work aloud first. Retell the trial and the cell scene in order, take one discussion question at a time, and write only the thesis for each written question before adding the objection.
On level The student retells the chapter, copies and reads the passage, talks through the discussion questions, then writes a thesis, an objection and a revision for each written question.
Harder Victor narrates, so even Justine’s words reach us through him. Ask the student whether that changes how far his comparison can be trusted, and have them answer the best objection to their own revision.
1. Justine’s confused answer to the market-woman was used as proof against her. So in court she “worked up her mind to an appearance of courage”. If calm can be put on like that, what can her face prove to anyone watching?Inference
What it asks It asks what a face can show when the person wearing it knows she is being judged by it, and whether the watchers see her or only what they already believe.
Very little. Each watcher reads the face through what they already believe: the crowd sees the crime, and Victor, who knows she is innocent, sees innocence in the same face.
imagination of the enormity
gazed on and execrated
her utter guiltlessness
Something gets through. The effort itself shows, and so does what the face gives away when she cannot hold it, a tear and a look that changes as the trial goes on. These say more than the calm does.
her tranquillity was evidently constrained
A tear seemed to dim her eye
countenance had altered
A strong answer A strong response might start from “an appearance of courage”: the phrase says she shows courage whether or not she feels it, and she does it because her confusion was “adduced as a proof of her guilt”. One reading says a face proves little, since the thousands see “the enormity” and Victor sees “her utter guiltlessness” in the same face. Another says the effort leaks through, as in the tear that “seemed to dim her eye” and the countenance that “had altered” as the trial went on, so a face can show more than its owner means it to. Either reading can stand if it stays with what each watcher is shown to see.
2. A murmur of approval follows Elizabeth’s speech. But it is for “her generous interference”, and the crowd’s anger turns on Justine with “renewed violence”. How can the crowd admire Elizabeth and still turn on the woman she defends?Theme
What it asks It asks why approval of a speaker does not become belief in the person she speaks for, and what the crowd is really answering.
The crowd is moved by Elizabeth’s courage in speaking. That is a different feeling from believing Justine.
although violently agitated
excited by her generous interference
Elizabeth’s kindness makes the charge look blacker. The more the family loved Justine, the worse an ungrateful crime would be.
beloved by all the family
the blackest ingratitude
A strong answer A strong response might separate admiring a person from believing her case. The murmur is “excited by her generous interference”, so it answers Elizabeth’s courage, not the evidence. It could also argue that her kindness feeds the anger, since the crowd now charges Justine with “the blackest ingratitude”, as if Justine had repaid a loved household with a murder. The chapter does not say which feeling is stronger, so a strong answer says what each would explain.
3. Elizabeth believed in Justine in spite of all the evidence, until she heard of the confession. Why does a confession outweigh everything else she knows about Justine?Moral reasoning
What it asks It asks why a person’s own word about herself counts for more than years of knowing her, and what Elizabeth takes a confession to be.
A confession is the one witness from inside. Elizabeth could set years of knowing Justine against the outside evidence, but not against Justine’s own word about herself.
notwithstanding all the evidence produced against her
I relied on your innocence
but your own confession
It outweighs everything only because she never pictures how a confession could be forced. Once Justine tells her it was a lie, her trust comes back at once.
That report, you say, is false
Why did you confess?
Forgive me for having for one moment distrusted you
A strong answer A strong response might say that a confession is the accused’s own account of her heart, the one thing no witness and no picture can give. Elizabeth held to Justine against “all the evidence produced against her”, but she cannot hold out against “your own confession”. Another reading says the weight came from what Elizabeth assumed a confession must be: once Justine says it was forced, Elizabeth asks “Why did you confess?” and trusts her again. Either answer is stronger for setting her beside the officer, who is glad of the confession for a reason of his own.
4. Justine says her confessor “threatened and menaced” her. She also says “I had none to support me”. Which weighed more when she gave in, the threats or the loneliness?Character
What it asks It asks what finally made Justine confess to a murder she did not commit: fear for her soul in her last moments, or having no one on her side.
The threats. Justine had staked her salvation on her innocence, and the confessor threatened that very salvation at the hour of her death. She confessed to keep the forgiveness he could withhold.
I would pledge my salvation
He threatened excommunication and hell fire in my last moments
obtain absolution
The loneliness. With no one on her side, the confessor’s voice was the only one she heard, until she almost believed him.
timorous and unwilling
I had none to support me
I almost began to think that I was the monster
A strong answer A strong response might argue that the threats weighed more, since they aimed at the one thing Justine had pledged on her innocence, her salvation, and she says she confessed to “obtain absolution”. Another might argue that the threats worked only because no one stood with her: the witnesses at the trial were “timorous”, and alone with the confessor she “almost began to think” she was the monster he named. A strong answer may find the two hard to pull apart and say why. It stays with what Justine says, and does not claim the confessor knew she was innocent.
5. At the end of the chapter, Victor names himself: “Frankenstein, your son, your kinsman, your early, much-loved friend”. Then he says this man “bids you weep”. Why might he speak of himself as if he were someone else?Author's choice
What it asks It asks what the distance of the third person does: whether it lets Victor see his own part more clearly or lets him mourn as if the harm came from somewhere else.
Seen from outside, the loving son and the man who makes them weep are one person. The third person lets him say it plainly.
who would spend each vital drop of blood for your sakes
he bids you weep, to shed countless tears
the work of my thrice-accursed hands
The distance lets him mourn as someone caught by a force larger than himself, so the grief reads as something that happens to them all.
if thus inexorable fate be satisfied
the first hapless victims
Thus spoke my prophetic soul
A strong answer A strong response might say the third person sets Victor beside himself, so that he can hold two views at once: the man who loves them and the man whose hands did this. It could also argue that naming “inexorable fate” gives him somewhere to put the blame. The chapter holds both, so a strong answer says which one the closing sentence leans toward and why.
1. Three times Victor says that if he spoke out, people would think he was mad. Is that a good reason to stay silent, or an excuse?
What it asks It asks the student to judge Victor’s silence by what he says he fears and by what he actually does, keeping both his reason and his remorse in view.
It is a real reason. He was away when the crime was done, so no one would believe his confession, and the judges have already turned away his appeals. Speaking out would mark him as mad and still not undo the sentence.
was absent when it was committed
appeals were lost upon them
but not revoke the sentence
It is an excuse. He alone holds the suspicion he never tells. He flees the court, goes silent when Justine asks what he believes and lets his avowal die, while she is the one at risk.
I rushed out of the court in agony
I could not answer.
died away on my lips
A strong answer A strong response might claim that the fear is a real reason. He “was absent when it was committed”, and the court meets his appeals with “their cold answers”, so a confession would add “the ravings of a madman” to a verdict already given. The strongest objection is that his silence reaches past the court. He rushes out before the verdict, and in the cell he “could not answer” when Justine asks whether he believes her guilty, though no one would think him mad for saying no. A revision would narrow the claim: the fear explains why he never confessed to the judges, but not every silence in the chapter.
2. Victor says Justine’s tortures “did not equal mine”. Is his suffering the greater one?
What it asks It asks the student to test Victor’s comparison against what the chapter shows of each of them, and to take a side.
Victor’s suffering is greater because it has no end. Justine reaches a calm, while he carries a remorse that offers no hope.
gained the resignation she desired
never-dying worm alive in my bosom
despair had penetrated into the core of my heart
Justine’s suffering is greater. She is chained, made to doubt herself and put to death, and the one who calls his pain worse is free to walk out of the court.
her hands were manacled
I almost began to think that I was the monster
perished on the scaffold as a murderess
A strong answer A strong response might take a side and still give the other its due. It could argue that Victor’s pain is the greater because it has no end: Justine “gained the resignation she desired”, while he feels the “never-dying worm” and sees no hope. The best objection is that the scaffold ends Justine’s life and her false confession shook her sense of herself, while the one who calls his pain worse is free to leave the court. A revision might narrow the claim: his suffering lasts longer, but hers costs more. Either side can stand if it deals with the other’s best evidence.
He threatened excommunication and hell fire in my last moments if I continued obdurate.Stubborn and unwilling to give way. The confessor’s threat uses it for Justine’s refusal to confess. It comes from a Latin word for hardening, the same family as durable and endure.
Dear lady, I had none to support me; all looked on me as a wretch doomed to ignominy and perdition.Utter ruin, especially the loss of the soul to hell. Justine sets it beside “ignominy”, public shame, so the sentence names disgrace in this life and ruin in the next.
Yet she appeared confident in innocence and did not tremble, although gazed on and execrated by thousandsCursed or loathed openly. It is stronger than doubted or disliked, and Victor uses it for “thousands” of people at once. Its Latin root is the verb for cursing.
A murmur of approbation followed Elizabeth’s simple and powerful appealApproval, a good opinion. Here it is only a “murmur”, a sound the room makes, not a vote or a decision. It belongs to the family of approve and probation, from the Latin for proving something good.
A thousand times rather would I have confessed myself guilty of the crime ascribed to Justine, but I was absent when it was committed, and such a declaration would have been considered as the ravings of a madman and would not have exculpated her who suffered through me.Cleared of blame. In the sentence it is what a confession from Victor would fail to do for Justine. The root is the Latin for fault, as in culpable, and the prefix ex- means out of.
Thus spoke my prophetic soul, as, torn by remorse, horror, and despair, I beheld those I loved spend vain sorrow upon the graves of William and Justine, the first hapless victims to my unhallowed arts.Unlucky, struck by bad chance. It is built on “hap”, an old word for luck, the root also of happen and happy.