frankenstein friday

-victor wants to destroy the potential relationship b/t the 2 monsters, so the monster seeks revenge on victor on his wedding nite.  victor is so blinded by ambition he is afraid that the monster's threat is for him (instead, the monster kills elizabeth) —> the monster COULD have killed victor at anytime throughout the novel, but instead tortures him by killing several of his loved ones (clerval, william, elizabeth, etc) —> the monster may also have chosen not to kill victor b/c he is his creator.  he tortures him by killing those closest to him.

- one of our class's theory: what if there is no monster?  what if victor and the monster are 1 and the same, a la fight club?  (victor hallucinates the monster).  this is backed up by the fact that even though walter thinks he sees the monster, he is just as confused and delirious at times as victor, so he could be mistaken as well —> both could be just sheer self-destruction

-victor seems to be taking his time in marrying elizabeth, he could have married her before creating the monster, so is it really the case that he wants his loved ones around?  does he want them to die?

searching for "wretch" in etext version of original edition of vol. III of frankenstein

chapter 3- "she (the new monster) might become ten thousand times more malignant than her mate, and delight, for its own sake, in murder and wretchedness"

chapter 5- "(victor, talking to his father on the futility of pride, blaming himself for justine's murder) ... human beings, their feelings and passions, would indeed be degraded if such a wretch as i felt pride," then a couple paragraphs later, (victor, referring to the monster), "i avoided explanation, and maintained a continual silence concerning the wretch i had created"

walton's letters- (writing to margaret, telling her of victor's horrible story) "[victor's] fine and lovely eyes were now lighted up with indignation, now subdued to downcast sorrow, and quenched in infinite wretchedness"

-shelley is deliberately setting up the question of if there is really a monster or not, or if he is really victor?  what's psychology's role in this?  usually, laura wants to blame victor for elizabeth's death and call him selfish.  but now she sees his whole attitude as a summation of his desire to be the one to save everyone and have the attention all on him, maybe his reason for wanting to be completely alone in the world.