Frankenstein - Victor Flashcards
What is significant about his name?
Victor means winner
What about Victor’s personality is dangerous?
Thirst for knowledge
What isolates Victor from his family and friends?
His knowledge of the monster
How does Walton describe Victor?
Celestial spirit
Why can we see Victor’s flaws but the other characters can’t?
The other characters are short-sighted, or maybe biased narration
What does Victor say he wants?
Glory
Why doesn’t Victor long for love?
His parents were “possessed by the very spirit of kindness”
Why dies Victor change his mind about making Lady-Monster
The wickedness of my promise burst upon me
What does Victor want to discover?
Secrets of nature
Only looking back can he see that his experiments on corpses were
Unhallowed acts
Victor wants to impart on the world an…
Inestimable benefit
What does Victor think he has done by making the monster?
Unchained an enemy
Victor blames himself for the deaths
Not in deed, but in effect, the true murderer
Victor doesn’t commit suicide because he would leave his family…
Exposed and unprotected to the fiend whom I had let loose among them
How does Shelley describe Victor’s solitude with gothic imagery?
Deep, dark, deathlike
Victor finds happiness in places which are…
Terrifically desolate
This quote about Williams death could show why Victor refuses to reanimate another corpse. Or possibly he just wouldn’t reanimate his own brother
Irreparable
These show why Walton wants to succeed. Very general reasons
“Glory” “benefit”
Walton shows his struggles by comparing it to his sisters life. Also shows that their is no point not pursuing science.
Ease and luxury
Victor describe knowledge like this to Walton, to stop him. Has obvious biblical reference
Serpent to sting you
Ironically, Victor is described as this when he hears the monster is still alive
“Animated” “a new spirit of life”
Victor uses hyperbole to isolate himself and show how bad his hardship was
Suffered great unparalleled misfortune
Victor alludes to the Adam and Eve story when talking about ambition in a derogatory way.
Have you drank also the intoxicating draft?
Victor says his parents did this. Contrasts the monsters childhood
Fulfilled their duties
Victor uses a religious term to describe how he felt about Greek authors
Disciple
Wigtown has a temper which is described as…
Violent
Others agree that Victor loved science as a child
Eager desire to learn
Victor shows his love for his childhood and how he spent it
No human could have passed a happier childhood than myself
Victor recognises that he had a bad temper
My temper was sometimes violent
Victor shows a form of hubris
Denies gods role in nature
This explains why Shelley’s character was interested in electricity and reanimation
In Shelley’s time Luigi Galvani thought electricity was in the joints of animals
Victor uses pathetic fallacy to show what it was like playing with lightning. He was on the summit of science
I saw the lightnings playing on the summit of Mont Blanc
Victor describes the storm in the same way as his success with reanimation
Beautiful yet terrific
Victor describes the feeling of his success in a way that distances himself from the monster
Flesh tingling
