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Frankenstein
Mountaineers · 10th–12th
Ever since I was condemned, my confessor has besieged me; he threatened and menaced, until I almost began to think that I was the monster that he said I was. He threatened excommunication and hell fire in my last moments if I continued obdurate. Dear lady, I had none to support me; all looked on me as a wretch doomed to ignominy and perdition. What could I do? In an evil hour I subscribed to a lie; and now only am I truly miserable.
Read Justine’s words aloud, slowly. Which sentence is the hardest for her to say?
Narration Tell back what happens from the morning of the trial to the day Justine dies. Then choose the moment you think matters most, and say what it changes.
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
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
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
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
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
Make a Connection Think of a story, or a time in your own life, when someone knew something and chose not to say it. What can keeping quiet protect, and what does it cost?
He threatened excommunication and hell fire in my last moments if I continued obdurate.
Dear lady, I had none to support me; all looked on me as a wretch doomed to ignominy and perdition.
Yet she appeared confident in innocence and did not tremble, although gazed on and execrated by thousands
A murmur of approbation followed Elizabeth’s simple and powerful appeal
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.
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.
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?
2. Victor says Justine’s tortures “did not equal mine”. Is his suffering the greater one?