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Frankenstein Chapter 23 Notes - In-depth Language Analysis AO2
Frankenstein Chapter 23 Notes - In-depth Language Analysis AO2 and Context AO3 Themes: Death, Madness, Revenge, Warnings, Life vs Death & Animation and Extinction
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07/02/2022Notes:
Themes: Death, Madness, Revenge, Warnings, Life vs Death & Animation and Extinction
‘a film covered my eyes’ ‘heat of fever’ – allusion to Mariner after he killed the albatross.
‘rain fell in torrents’ – he wanted to bring a ‘torrent of light’ into the world, now nature has
turned against him.
‘great and sudden change…a fiend had snatched from me every hope’ – it’s actually Victor’s
fault that he has lost everything – ‘left desolate’.
‘eyes lost in vacancy’ – Alphonse has been blinded by Victors hubris and ambition.
‘doomed him to waste in wretchedness’ – Victor has doomed all of his family.
‘a solitary cell’ – he might have been confined to an asylum, he must have completely and
utterly lost his mind. He chose to be isolated before and now it is forced upon him.
Told the tale to the Magistrate and Walton – another allusion to the Mariner.
‘traverse the sea of ice’ – the creature is able to overcome obstacles that humans cannot
and is paired with nature.
Criminal law cannot deal with Victors problem, because the creature is beyond the normal
bounds of civilised society and humanity.
‘destroyed as a beast of prey’
‘the devouring and only passion of my soul’ – like his ambition was all-consuming, now he is
overcome with the need for revenge.
‘I devote myself’ – Victor is inadequate to destroy the creature, the creature is much
stronger and smarter than him.
‘how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom!’ – summary of the message of the novel.
Victor has created a god-less order of society where the normal bounds of life and society do
not apply or work. The creature and Victor have become one in the fact that they both have
nothing and are overtaken by the need for revenge.
Victor is confined to wander the earth and find people to tell the story to in order to
recompense for his crimes just like the Mariner – his future comprises of his one goal: to kill
the creature.
‘sacred earth’ – finally realised how important nature is, he calls to the spirits and mother
nature for help to destroy the creature – ‘spirits that I invoked’, but the creature is the real
spirit, just like with the De Lacey’s but this time it is an example of the creatures perverse
generosity and not empath and kindness.
‘furies possessed me’ – Greek-Roman Goddesses of vengeance who were sent to punish
men for their crimes, including those who do not fulfil their family duties.
‘I am satisfied’ – the creature is pleased and glad that Victor is suffering because the
creature suffered more than Victor because of him.
‘cursed by some devil…eternal hell’ – allusion to Paradise Lost. (‘I like an arch-fiend bore a
hell within me’).
The creature leads Victor to where he knows that Victor will not survive – taunting Victor
where the creature will get his final revenge – ‘satisfy my everlasting hatred’.
‘immense and rugged mountains of ice often barred up my passage’ – inhospitable setting,
just like Victor’s isolation and uselessness.
‘ground sea’ ‘a ground sea was heard’ – allusion to the Mariner, nature’s warning.
‘swear to me…he shall not escape…satisfy my vengeance in his death’ – Victor is so selfish to
transfer his burden onto Walton because he know the difficulties of having to live up to
someone’s dying wish.
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