Chapters 1 and 2 Quotes (Frankenstein): Flashcards
Who are these chapters narrated by?
Victor
“I am by birth a Genevese; and my family is one of the most distinguished of that republic”
Immediate display of hubris
“he was respected by all who knew him for his integrity” / “honour” / “reputation”
“his grief only became more deep and rankling when he had leisure for reflection” / “his daughter attended him with the greatest tenderness”
“he came like a protecting spirit to the poor girl, who committed herself to his care”
“there was a sense of justice in my father’s upright mind” / “there was a show of gratitude and worship in his attachment to my mother”
“he strove to shelter her” / “and to surround her with all that could tend to excite pleasurable emotion in her soft and benevolent mind”
“I was their plaything and their idol” / “bestowed on them by Heaven”
“I received a lesson of patience, of charity and of self-control” / “deep consciousness of what they owed towards the being to which they had given life”
“guardian angel to the afflicted”
“her face so expressive [..] that none could behold her without looking on her as a distinct species” / “heaven-sent” / “celestial stamp”
“my more than sister”
“I have a pretty present for my Victor” / “she presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift”
“looked upon Elizabeth as mine - mine to protect, love and cherish”
“since till death she was to be mine only”
“Harmony was the soul o our companionship”
“but with all my ardour, I was capable of a more intense application, and was more deeply smitten with the first for knowledge”
“she busied herself with […] the majestic and wondrous scenes which surrounded our Swiss home”
“I delighted in investigating their causes” / “the world was to me a secret which I desired to divine” / “hidden laws of nature”
“It was my temper to avoid a crowd, and to attach myself fervently to a few”
(about Henry Clerval): “he loved enterprise, hardship and even danger” / “he tried to make us act in plays” / “he was deeply read”
“No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself”
“My temper was sometimes violent, and my passions vehement”
“but to an eager desire to learn, and not to learn all things indiscriminately”
“It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn”
“the saintly soul of Elizabeth shone like a shrine-dedicated lamp”
“I would account to myself for the birth of that passion, which afterwards ruled my destiny”
“If, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to explain to me” […] “I should certainly have thrown Agrippa aside” / “the train of my ideas would never have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin”
“having been embued with a fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of nature”
“my father was not scientific, and I was left to struggle with a child’s blindness”
“Wealth was an inferior object; but what glory would attend the discovery, if I could banish disease from the human frame”
“we witnessed a most violent and terrible thunderstorm” / “I never beheld anything so utterly destroyed”
“It seemed to me as if nothing would or could ever be known”
(after briefly giving up studies):
“it seems to me as if this almost miraculous change of inclination and will was the immediate suggestion of the guardian angel of my life - the last effort made by the spirit of preservation to avert the storm that was even then hanging in the stars, and ready to envelope me”
“It was a strong effort / but it was ineffectual”
“Destiny was too potent”
