Frankenstein Reading Journal: ^ Volume Three Chapter VII (Chapter 24)

Chapter I:

• Creating another monster involves again travelling from Geneva - reiterates the pureness that Geneva represents to Victor, a pureness violated by the Creation several times.
• Once again like in Volume One, Chapter 6, Victor puts off his own consummation with Elizabeth for scientific work and the consummation between the Creation and the to-be female. Is he afraid of women? Instead he would rather go to a far away land with Clerval; another man.

Chapter II:

• Victor compares the attractions of England to Switzerland, but England offers many more man-made wonders e.g. it's historical cities; it is in Scotland Victor must go to carry out his act, a country of more natural wonders - perhaps this highlights Victor's constant contaminate nature with his atrocities.
• Victor's mental state deteriorates again from the solitude of his task “my spirits became unequal; I grew restless and nervous.".

Chapter III:

• Victor begins to have anxieties (gothic) and second thoughts over creating the female monster.
• References to nature - "Eye of the moon"; a Godly presence that Victor feels is judging his actions.
• Victor's unfocused mind is reflected by his thoughts wandering between his laboratory and South America, mimicked also by the transition of night and day.
• Power shift between Victor and the Creation "but I am your master; obey!”
• Foreshadowing of future climaxes "with you on your wedding night" and "gentlemen was found murdered here" - reader grasps ideas quicker than narrator.
• Gothic elements of focusing on light and dark (day and night).
• May sympathise with Creation because all he wants is a companion but Victor also because he has experienced the losses of creating the first one.
• The journey from Geneva to Scotland may represent the emotional journeys of both Victor and the Creation; Victor no longer wants to pursue science and the Creation has matured to want a mate.
• Destroying the female may represent Victor's fears of femininity or even his desire to have the Creation solely to himself.
• By throwing the remains of the female into the sea, Victor gives back to nature what he has taken.

Chapter IV:

• Arriving in Ireland, Gothic element of foreign settings.
• Imprisoned for the murder of Clerval, essentially Victor is being punished by humans for his act of making the Creation.
• Falling into convulsions both at the sight of Clerval dead and at the trial show Victor's worsening condition to be able to cope with the burden of the Creation and his deeds "The human frame could no longer support the agonizing suffering".
• Like after finishing the creation of the first monster, having finished his business with the second, Victor again falls into illness, except this time his last saviour, Clerval, is dead. In his place comes his father Alphonse; showing the value of family and perhaps foreshadowing the death of Alphonse. Like previous, death often comes to those who try or offer help to others.
• Victor's mind crumbles further as he supposes the coming of his father could be the monster "Oh! Take him away! I cannot see him;" - he forgets that the monster is hideous and has had no success in communicating with humans so could not have been granted access to Victor.

Chapter V:

• Victor slowly becomes more like the Creation in both his animosity towards humans and his fear that they would hate him for unleashing the Creation upon humanity "But I felt I had no right to share their intercourse...How they would, each and all, abhor me,".
• Upon seeing Elizabeth again, like he, she has lost some of her beauty, no longer are they both wonderful and perfect, as if they are the scorned Adam and Eve "She was thinner, and had lost much of that heavenly vivacity that had before charmed me;" Also, they are more alike what could have been the union between the Creation and the female, both weathered and unbeautiful. Still yet, Victor wants her as his wife, he has a choice where as the Creation did not in the destruction of his companion.
• Victor's dull description of Nature shows it now takes a less emotional and impactful stance, his life has been degraded and instead of nature offering an elevating consolation, it is just a setting for Victor's sorrows.

Chapter VI:

• Elizabeth is murdered, Alphonse dies of heartbreak, Victor resolves to tell the people but the court will not help his efforts to bring the Creation to justice.
• "pale yellow light of the moon illuminate the chamber." - like the yellow skin of the Creation, the light entering the room represents the Creation ravaging and staining the private place of the newlyweds.
• Victor claims the magistrate responds to his confession with "the whole tide of his incredulity returned" however the magistrate's words do not suggest this showing perhaps the idea that no one would believe Victor was all his own thinking and that he had been exaggerating his fears; narrator bias.
• The climax of the novel with the last of Victor’s family dead, Elizabeth in particular, Victor is stripped of the one thing that separated him from the Creation, his social companions, now he becomes the bloodthirsty and vengeful monster.

Chapter VII Victor:

•  Victor tells Walton of his pursuit which leads him to the North: visiting his family gravesite in Geneva, Victor sees the Creation beginning his chase all across Europe, leaving everything behind. Victor dies on the ship with his last words warning Walton "Seek happiness in tranquillity and avoid ambition," and asking him to succeed where he failed in killing the monster.
• Similar to Macbeth, 'Sleep' is of some value here, unlike Macbeth who "murdered" sleep; it is only in sleep that Victor may see/be with his loved ones. Awake, Victor is a demon hell-bent on revenge.
• Where before, nature held strong emotional attachment to Victor, it now just marks points in his journey to kill the Creation i.e. the Black Sea and Mediterranean.
• Victor's unsettled mind is reflected by his constantly changing location.
• Victor's transformation into becoming the monster is complete “I was cursed by some devil,” he is fuelled by his desire for vengeance like the Creation was fuelled by his desire to make Victor feel his pain.
• Victor did feel a duty towards his Creation "bound towards him, to assure...his happiness and well-being." but this was put aside for Victor's love for his own kind "My duties towards the beings of my own species".

Chapter VII Walton:

• Narrator reliability "then himself corrected and augmented...giving life and spirit to the conversations".
• Victor as Adam "He seems to feel his own worth and the greatness of his fall."
• Victor was the Creation's last scope into humanity and with his death, he feels sorrow of bringing such pain and losing his father "what does it avail that I now ask thee to pardon me?"
• Walton acts as the voice of the reader who sympathises most with Victor "You lament only because the victim of your malignity is withdrawn from your power."
•  The Creation is given the oppurtunity to truly announce his emotions "but I was the slave, not the master, of an impulse which I detested, yet could not disobey" - like Adam drawn to the temptation of the apple. Hearing multiple perspectives of the central characters leaves the reader questioning who was the actual monster "my agony was still superior to thine;".
• Paradise Lost: "the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil." even Satan had associates but he is alone.
• Reclaiming of the unnatural Creation by nature "my ashes will be swept into the sea by the winds."