Frankenstein

1
Frankenstein

• Chapters 17-20

2
Chapter 17

• You must create a female companion for me with
  whom I can live in the interchange of those
  sympathies necessary for my being. This you
  alone can do, and I demand it of you as a right
  which you must not refuse to concede (134).
• Urgent need for companion for sympathy
  compassion
• No sexual references or innuendos
• Parallels Walters letter to his sister

3
Chapter 17

• Creature does not receive human thoughts,
  feelings or compassion from anyone or anything
• Isolation from everything
• His creator contributed to what he fears
• I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I
  not shunned and hated by all mankind? You, my
  creator, would tear me to pieces and triumph
  remember that, and tell me why I should pity man
  more than he pities Shall I respect man when he
  contemns me? (134)

4
Chapter 17

• Creator manipulates Victor into creating a
  companion
• I will revenge my injuries if I cannot inspire
  love, I will cause fear, and chiefly towards you
  my archenemy, because my creator, do I swear
  inextinguishable hatred. Have a care I will
  work at your destruction, nor finish until I
  desolate your heart, so that you shall curse the
  hour of your birth (135)

5
Chapter 17

• I demand I creature of another sex, but as
  hideous as myself the gratification is small,
  but it is all I can receive, and it shall content
  me. It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off
  from all the world but on that account we shall
  be more attached to one another. Our lives will
  not be happy, but they will harmless and free
  from the misery I now feel, Oh! My creator, make
  me happy let me feel gratitude towards you for
  one benefit! (135)

6
Chapter 17

• Frankenstein feels horror and terror in
  undertaking this endeavor however, realizes it
  as a necessity for his own future.
• Creature threatens Frankenstein- he will hunt him
  down until he has his companion.
• The purpose of his story was to elicit a
  response, thus making Frankenstein feel
  responsible

7
Chapter 18

• Victors Obligation
• To me the idea of an immediate union with my
  Elizabeth was one of horror and dismay. I was
  bound by a solemn promise which I had not yet
  fulfilled and dared not break, or if I did, what
  manifold miseries might not impend over me and me
  devoted family! Could I enter into a festival
  with this deadly weight yet hanging round my neck
  and bowing me to the ground?(141).
• Cannot experience joy until he creates the
  monsters companion
• Monster cannot experience happiness or solitude
  until his companion is created

8
Chapter 18

• Victor verses Henry
• Victor
• Introvert, inwardly focused, secretive
• Anxiety and pessimistic towards nature knowing
  the monster is out in it
• Henry
• Sociable, outwardly focused, optimistic
• Nature makes him happy and feel alive
• He was alive to every new scene, joyful when he
  saw the beauties of the setting sun , and more
  happy when he beheld it rise and recommence a new
  dayThis is what it is to live now I enjoy
  existence! (143)
• Clerval represents what Victor could have been
  had he lived his life like Wordsworth in Tintern
  Abbey

9
Chapter 18

• A Few Lines Composed Above Tinturn Abbey
• The sounding cataract
• Haunted him like a passion the tall rock,
• The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
• Their colours and their forms, were then to him
• An appetite a feeling, and a love,
• That had no need of a remoter charm,
• By thought supplied, or any interest
• Unborrowd from the eye.

10
Chapter 19

• Victors Guilt
• I saw an insurmountable barrier placed between
  me and my fellow men this barrier was sealed
  with the blood of William and Justine, and to
  reflect on the events connected with those names
  filled my soul with anguish (147).
• Victors must isolate himself in order to free
  himself from guilt of their deaths

11
Chapter 19

• Victors Guilt
• I felt as if I had committed some great crime,
  the consciousness of which haunted me. I was
  guiltless, but I had indeed drawn down a horrible
  curse upon my head, as mortal as that of crime
  (151).
• Irony- his creation became his curse
• he is the cause of his misery and of the
  monsters misery

12
Chapter 19

• Foreshadowing
• I looked towards its completion with tremulous
  and eager hope, which was intermixed with obscure
  forebodings of evil that made my heart sicken in
  my bosom (154)
• Realization of the end
• What his task will create
• More destruction and death?
• His happiness?

13
Chapter 19

• Victors Realization and Rationalization
• Three years before, I was engaged in the same
  manner and had created a fiend whose unparalleled
  barbarity had desolated my heart and filled it
  forever with the bitterest remorse. I was now
  about to form another being of whose dispositions
  I was alike ignorant she might become then
  thousand times more malignant than her mate and
  delight, for its own sake, in murder and
  wretchedness (155).

14
Chapter 20

• Symbolism of 2nd creature
• Victor
• Represents another possible crime against
  humanity
• Monster
• Represents only hope for life not of isolation
  and alienation

15
Chapter 20

• Foreshadowing
• Remember that I have power you believe
  yourself miserable, but I can make you so
  wretched that the light of day will be hateful to
  you. You are my creator, but I am your master,
  obey! (157).
• Indicates the true power the monster holds
• It is well. I go but remember, I shall be with
  you on your wedding-night (158).\
• He will not allow Victor happiness with a woman
  that he cannot experience
• Victor is destroying all of his hopes and dreams
  as well as a life not destined to isolation and
  alienation.