Frankenstein (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (34 page)

5
(p. 53) “without Greek”: Clerval is thinking of the stubborn and self-satisfied schoolmaster of The Vicar of Wakefield ( 17 66) , by Oliver Goldsmith ( 17 3 0- 1774). The schoolmaster believes that “as I don’t know Greek, I do not believe there is any good in it”; likewise, Clerval’s business-minded father has trouble understanding his son’s interest in literature and culture.

6
(p. 56) cousin: In the 1818 text Elizabeth and Victor are cousins; Mary Shelley altered their relationship in 18 31, although she retained several references to “cousin,” probably as an endearment.

Chapter VI

1
(p. 57) our Ernest!: Ernest is Victor’s brother, but here Elizabeth speaks of him as if he were their child. Obviously “playing house,” Elizabeth drops even bigger hints at the end of the letter, gossiping about other marriages and relationships.

2
(p. 58) beauty of
Angelica:
In Orlando Furioso (1532) by Ludovico Ariosto (1474- 1535), Orlando’s fascination with the beautiful, married Angelica precipitates the madness alluded to in the title.

3
(p. 62) manly and heroical poetry: Clerval strikes a Byronic pose here. The “oriental romances” Byron published from 1812 to 1815 (including The Giaour, The Bride of Abydos, The Corsair, and Lara) confirmed his celebrity status as a poet in England.

Chapter VII

1
(p. 64) William is dead!: William was also the name of the Shelleys’ first son, who was born in January 1816 (before Mary began Frankenstein) and died in 1819, after the novel was published.

2
(p. 67) “palaces of
nature”:
The description of the mountains is from Byron’s poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, canto 3, stanza 62, line 2. See
Byron’s
Poetry, Frank D. McConnell, New York: Norton, 1978, p.64.

3
(p. 67) summit of Mont Blanc: In his great poem Mont Blanc, written in the summer of 1816, Percy Shelley uses this mountain peak, the highest in France, to represent the actuating force of the universe-the “Power,” as he describes it in lines 16 and 96 of the work.

4
(p. 68) faint flashes: Frankenstein is describing a violent thunderstorm ranging through various mountain ranges in Switzerland (including the peaks of Saleve and Mole). Flashes of lightning, first mentioned on page 36, inspired Frankenstein’s creation of the monster and precede and accompany the monster appearance.

5
(p. 70) kneeling by the coffin: The honor paid to Victor’s mother is reminiscent of William Godwin’s worship of Mary Wollstonecraft long after her death. He, too, erected a “shrine” to her in his and Mary’s home, and published Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1798.

Chapter IX

1
(p. 81 ) tempted to plunge: Frankenstein’s suicidal thoughts were probably inspired by The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). The popular book, in which Werther, the protagonist, becomes so despondent over an unrequited love that he kills himself, triggered a rash of suicides in the early 1800s: Young men were found dead, dressed in Werther’s distinctive clothing and often carrying a copy of Goethe’s book.

2
(p. 84) the mighty Alps: Mary Shelley is influenced here by her husband’s poem Mont Blanc. In the second stanza, he writes of the “Ravine of Arve dark, deep Ravine ... Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down/ From the ice gulfs that gird its secret throne” (lines 12, 16-17).

1
(p. 87)
go without a guide:
In deciding to ascend a mountain peak alone, Frankenstein follows in the footsteps of many a Romantic poet before him. The most notable of these was William Wordsworth (1770-1850), whose ascent of Snowdon in Wales and the great revelation he experiences at the peak is the culminating moment of his great autobiographical poem, The Prelude (1850).

2
(p. 87) “We rest ... but mutability!”: The quotation, the last stanza of Percy Shelley’s “Mutability,” is well timed. The poem explores the certainty of change in human existence; sure enough, Frankenstein’s sense of peace and oneness with the scene before him is about to be violently disrupted.

3
(p. 89) I shall again be virtuous: “God makes all things good; man meddles with them and they become evil:” Thus begins Rousseau’s Emile. (See chap. 1, note 2.)

4
(p. 90) the eternal justice of man!: As evinced by this passage and many others, Shelley is in a dialogue with her famous father throughout Frankenstein; note that the book is dedicated “To William Godwin, Author of Political Justice, Caleb Williams, etc.” (See, above, Introduction, note 1.) Both Godwin’s political philosophy and his novel inform the story and messages of Frankenstein, though the influence of Political Justice is most pervasive. “Justice is reciprocal,” writes Godwin in chapter 2 of that work. “If it be just that I should confer a benefit, it is just that another man should receive it, and, if I withhold from him that to which he is entitled, he must justly complain.” Recognizing the inequalities of his master’s and his own situation, the monster takes Godwin’s advice and speaks up.

5
(p. 91 ) duties of a creator: This flash of conscience on Frankenstein’s part may have been inspired by Shelley’s reading of her mother’s great work. In A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft reminds parents of their shaping influence on children: “A great proportion of the misery that wanders, in hideous forms, around the world, is allowed to arise from the negligence of parents. See A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, by Mary Wollstonecraft, edited by Carol H. Poston, New York: Norton, 1975, p. 154.

Chapter XI

1
(p. 92) the original era of my being: In the pages that follow, remembering the order of his “birth” and development, the monster roughly follows the biblical order of creation in the book of Genesis: perceiving strong light (creation of light, 1:3), walking on land and discovering water (earth and seas, 1:10), eating berries (vegetation, 1:12), recognizing the movement of the sun and moon (the greater and lesser lights for day and night, 1: 16), dehghting in the “litde winged animals” (birds and fish, 1:21), and coming into contact with man (human life, 1:27).

2
(p. 95) lake of fire: The monster here demonstrates his knowledge of Paradise Lost, in which Satan’s troops flood the new kingdom of Pandemonium they have erected in Hell (book 1, lines 670-732 ) .

Chapter XII

1
(p. 103) the ass and the lap-dog: In Jean de La Fontaine’s Fables (book 4, chap. 5), the lapdog is petted for fawning on its master, but the ass is punished severely when he attempts to emulate the dog’s behavior. See Fables of La Fontaine, 2 vols., translated by Elizur Wright, Jr., New York: Derby and Jackson, 1860, vol. 1, pp. 137-138.

Chapter XIII

1
(p. 106) Volney’s Ruins of Empires: The monster’s introduction to history and philosophy was written by Constantin François Chasseboeuf, comte de Volney (1757-1820), a revolutionary and Napoleonic senator. Les Ruines; ou, Meditations sur les revolutions des empires ( 1791 ) was a widely read series that elaborated on the count’s radical thoughts.

Chapter XV

1
(p. 114) the books: The first three books the monster perused were all part of Shelley’s reading the previous year, and they profoundly affected her shaping of the monster as well as the text. Milton’s Paradise Lost is quoted and referenced throughout Frankenstein; the monster and Victor both sympathize closely with Milton’s Satan, the “overreacher” and outcast. The Greek essayist Plutarch (c. A.D. 46-125) is most famous for his Parallel Lives, a collection of biographies of famous Greeks and Romans. The English translation of Plutarch’s Lives profoundly affected English literature, particularly Shakespeare’s plays. Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther (see chap. 9, note 1 ) popularized the new emotional awareness of the Romantic age-a radical departure from the order and control exemplified by Enlightenment writers. The monster’s expressiveness and passion were probably inspired in part by Werther’s great despair and dramatic suicide.

2
(p. 115) “the path of my departure was free”: Percy Shelley’s poem “Mutability,” quoted on page 87 (see chap. X, note 2), is referenced again here (the monster slightly misquotes the third-to-last line). Victor’s creation has discovered for himself the opportunities for change and growth in his life but mourns his lack of guidance, sympathy, and support.

3
(p. 115) peaceable lawgivers: Reading Plutarch’s Lives gave the monster the ability to name-drop in this way. Numa Pomplius (715-673 B.C.) was the second king of Rome; Solon (sixth century B.C.) was an Athenian poet and statesman ; Lycurgus (390-324 B.C.) was also an Athenian statesman. These three historical figures are distinguished from Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome (with Remus), and Theseus, a legendary Athenian hero.

4
(p. 1 17) Adain’s supplication to his Creator: The monster is remembering either the quote that found its way onto the tide page of Frankenstein (Paradise Lost, book 10, lines 743-745) or another one from the same work (book 8, lines 379-397).

Chapter XVI

1
(p. 121) Cursed, cursed creator!: The monster evokes Job’s agony several times in his speech. Though Job himself never went so far as to curse his creator, he does exclaim, “Let the day perish wherein I was born” (the Bible, Job 3:3; King James Version), continuing with “Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?” (Job 3 :11 ) .

2
(p. 121 ) bore a hell within me: The monster’s pronouncement is an echo of Satan’s in Paradise Lost: “Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell” (book 4, line 7 S ) .

3
(p. 123) enveloped by the flames: The inflamed tree branch brings to mind Frankenstein’s “electric” moment of enlightenment and the blasted tree in chapter II. Whereas the creator was infatuated with the creative force of fire, the created is determined to utilize its destructive capabilities.

1
(p. 138) During this voyage ... occupy the scene: Mary and Percy Shelley made a similar trip down the Rhine River in 1814; it is recounted in Mary Shelley’s History of a Six Weeks’ Tour, published in 1817. Clerval’s descriptions of his visits to French lakes and mountains in the next paragraph are based on more recollections of 1814 that are included in Shelley’s travelogue of that trip.

2
(p. 139) “very poetry of nature”: Shelley herself notes that the quote is from “Rimini” (1816), by the English Romantic poet Leigh Hunt (1784-1859). The original “poet of nature” was Wordsworth (Percy Shelley’s poem “To Wordsworth,” written in 1816, begins by invoking the “Poet of Nature”). From his chivalrous flights of fancy in chapter II to his Byronic orientalism in chapter VI and his current interest in nature poetry and the sympathetic imagination, Clerval continues to expand his literary horizons. In the quote from “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” (lines 76-83), Wordsworth recalls his instinctive connection to nature in his youth; though he no longer possesses it, he claims to have developed a new, mature sympathy for humanity.

Chapter XIX

1
(p. 141) his plan: Clerval’s interest in colonizing India demonstrates that he has inherited some of his father’s business acumen after all. The British Empire in India was initiated by Robert Clive’s victory at Plassey in 17 5 7 ; by 1818 the British controlled nearly all of the country south of the Sutlej River and had reduced their most powerful Indian opposition to vassalage.

2
(p. 142) the beginning of October: On page 140, Frankenstein claimed to have first seen “the white cliffs of Britain” in late December. Either he is confused (thus demonstrating himself to be an unreliable narrator), or Shelley herself has made an error.

3
(p. 142) Falkland ... Goring: Lucius Cary, Viscount Falkland (1610-1643), was a scholar and moderate royalist and the secretary of state to Charles I; he deliberately went to his death at the battle of Newbury in 1643. George, Baron Goring (1608-1657), was an ambitious (and unscrupulous) royalist general.

4
(p. 143) illustrious Hampden: Frankenstein is momentarily inspired by the story of John Hampden (1594-1643), a parliamentarian who was famous for his opposition to Charles I and died for his beliefs.

5
(p. 143) cabinets of natural history: The reference is probably to grottoes, such as the High Tor Grotto between Matlock and Madock Bath.

6
(p. 144) the various lakes: Clerval and Frankenstein are now visiting the Lake District, a popular tourist destination and home and inspiration to Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lamb, and other “Lake Poets” in the early 1800s.

1
(p. 149) on your wedding-night: This ominous and often-repeated line has several implications. Most obviously, the monster seems to be warning of his interference with Frankenstein’s marital plans. Additionally, since Frankenstein has just destroyed the monster’s hopes of having a wedding night of his own, the monster’s desire to be with Frankenstein during this time seems strangely intimate, and even hints of incest.

1
(p. 163) laudanum: First compounded by Paracelsus, laudanum is a mixture of opium and alcohol that was considered to be a healthful elixir. Many artists and writers experimented with the addictive substance, including Byron, Polidori, and the Shelleys. Hallucination was one of its effects, and Frankenstein experiences terrible nightmares once he doubles his dose.

Chapter XXII

1
(p. 165)
sea
of ice: Frankenstein last visited the Mer de Glace at Chamounix before meeting and speaking with the monster for the first time (p. 87).

Chapter XXIII

1
(p. 173) on its bridal bier: The image of Elizabeth’s body thrown across the bed was inspired by The Nightmare ( 17 81 ) , a painting by the artist Henry Fuseli, who frequented the intellectual circles of Shelley’s parents. See Shelley: The Pursuit, by Richard Holmes, New York: E. P. Dutton, 1975, plate 6.