Victor Frankenstein: Modern Prometheus in Frankenstein, Sbobinature di Letteratura Inglese

Scarica Victor Frankenstein: Modern Prometheus in Frankenstein e più Sbobinature in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! W. Godwin remarries with Mary Jane Clairmont, who already had a daughter too, Claire (Mary’s step-sister; Claire will have a daughter with Lord Byron). She didn’t really receive a formal education, but she received great intellectual stimulus since in her father’s house was the meeting point of numerous philosophers, writers, poets. In 1814, at the age of 17, Mary falls desperately in love with Percy Shelley (young radical romantic poet) and decides to elope with him and leave England. Shelley was married with a son, so she takes a huge risk and breaks all rules (Mary’s father strongly opposed to all this). Mary gets pregnant, has 2 stillborn children, so by the age of 19 she experiences a very traumatic relationship with her generative femininity and pregnancy itself  important autobiographical aspect which could have inspired the fantasy/obsession with self-generation that characterises the character of Victor Frankenstein. In 1819 the couple has another son, Percy Florence Shelley, their only child to live beyond infancy (died at 70 yo in 1889). In 1822, her husband drowned when his sailing boat sank during a storm near Viareggio. A year later, Shelley returned to England and from then on devoted herself to the upbringing of her son and a career as a professional author. The last decade of her life was dogged by illness, most likely caused by the brain tumour which killed her at the age of 53. Behind the creation of Frankenstein In the summer of 1816, Mary and Percy Shelley were travelling in Europe and spent time visiting Byron at “his” house in Switzerland (Villa Diodati, near Lake Geneva). According to Mary Shelley’s introduction to the 1831 edition of the novel, the three writers devised a game to see who could invent the most terrifying ghost story. The author writes that that night she had a shocking dream about an inventor assembling a monster, and began writing the story that she would eventually expand into Frankenstein.  Frankenstein still today has a huge transmedia afterlife (Its afterlife across different media: literature, drama, film, cinema, television, graphic novels, comics… Mary Wollenstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851) Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus Plot summary In a series of letters, Robert Walton, the captain of a ship bound for the North Pole, recounts to his sister back in England the progress of his dangerous mission. Successful early on, the mission is soon interrupted by seas full of impassable ice. Trapped, Walton encounters Victor Frankenstein, who has been traveling by dog-drawn sledge across the ice and is weakened by the cold. Walton takes him aboard ship, helps nurse him back to health, and hears the fantastic tale of the monster that Frankenstein created. Victor first describes his early life in Geneva. At the end of a blissful childhood spent in the company of Elizabeth Lavenza (his cousin in the 1818 edition, his adopted sister in the 1831 edition) and friend Henry Clerval, Victor enters the university of Ingolstadt to study natural philosophy and chemistry. There, he is consumed by the desire to discover the secret of life and, after several years of research, becomes convinced that he has found it. Armed with the knowledge he has long been seeking, Victor spends months feverishly fashioning a creature out of body parts. One climactic night, in the secrecy of his apartment, he brings his creation to life. When he looks at the monstrosity that he has created, however, the sight horrifies him. After a fitful night of sleep, interrupted by the specter of the monster looming over him, he runs into the streets, eventually wandering in remorse. Victor runs into Henry, who has come to study at the university, and he takes his friend back to his apartment. Though the monster is gone, Victor falls into a feverish illness. Sickened by his horrific deed, Victor prepares to return to Geneva, to his family, and to health. Just before departing Ingolstadt, however, he receives a letter from his father informing him that his youngest brother, William, has been murdered. Grief-stricken, Victor hurries home. While passing through the woods where William was strangled, he catches sight of the monster and becomes convinced that the monster is his brother’s murderer. Arriving in Geneva, Victor finds that Justine Moritz, a kind, gentle girl who had been adopted by the Frankenstein household, has been accused. She is tried, condemned, and executed, despite her assertions of innocence. Victor grows despondent, guilty with the knowledge that the monster he has created bears responsibility for the death of two innocent loved ones. Hoping to ease his grief, Victor takes a vacation to the mountains. While he is alone one day, crossing an enormous glacier, the monster approaches him. The monster admits to the murder of William but begs for understanding. Lonely, shunned, and forlorn, he says that he struck out at William in a desperate attempt to injure Victor, his cruel creator. The monster begs Victor to create a mate for him, a monster equally grotesque to serve as his sole companion. Victor refuses at first, horrified by the prospect of creating a second monster. The monster is eloquent and persuasive, however, and he eventually convinces Victor. After returning to Geneva, Victor heads for England, accompanied by Henry, to gather information for the creation of a female monster. Leaving Henry in Scotland, he secludes himself on a desolate island in the Orkneys and works reluctantly at repeating his first success. One night, struck by doubts about the morality of his actions, Victor glances out the window to see the monster glaring in at him with a frightening grin. Horrified by the possible consequences of his work, Victor destroys his new creation. The monster, enraged, vows revenge, swearing that he will be with Victor on Victor’s wedding night. Later that night, Victor takes a boat out onto a lake and dumps the remains of the second creature in the water. The wind picks up and prevents him from returning to the island. In the morning, he finds himself ashore near an unknown town. Upon landing, he is arrested and informed that he will be tried for a murder discovered the previous night. Victor denies any knowledge of the murder, but when shown the body, he is shocked to behold his friend Henry Clerval, with the mark of the monster’s fingers on his neck. Victor falls ill, raving and feverish, and is kept in prison until his recovery, after which he is acquitted of the crime. Shortly after returning to Geneva with his father, Victor marries Elizabeth. He fears the monster’s warning and suspects that he will be murdered on his wedding night. To be cautious, he sends Elizabeth away to wait for him. While he awaits the monster, he hears Elizabeth scream and realizes that the monster had been hinting at killing his new bride, not himself (she is strangled and murdered by the creature). Victor returns home to his father, who dies of grief a short time later. Victor vows to devote the rest of his life to finding the monster and exacting his revenge, and he soon departs to begin his quest. Victor tracks the monster ever northward into the ice. In a dogsled chase, Victor almost catches up with the monster, but the sea beneath them swells and the ice breaks, leaving an unbridgeable gap between them. At this point, Walton encounters Victor, and the narrative catches up to the time of Walton’s fourth letter to his sister. Walton tells the remainder of the story in another series of letters to his sister. Victor, already ill when the two men meet, worsens and dies shortly thereafter. When Walton returns, several days later, to the room in which the body lies, he is startled to see the monster weeping over Victor. The monster tells Walton of his immense solitude, suffering, hatred, and remorse. He asserts that now that his creator has died, he too can end his suffering. The monster then departs for the northernmost ice to die. The subtitle It is a novel about the Promethean myth of overreaching man’s boundaries = Victor as the modern Prometheus in the sense that he’s scientist whose aspiration is to become a sort of divinity of creation, he is obsessed with the idea of self-generation: he wants to go beyond/rebel against any natural law and self-generate life  Victor as the ambitious scientist mirroring the Promethean “maker”, “artist”, “shaper” of men. He is a searcher after forbidden knowledge, an overreacher who refuses to accept limitations, and is subsequently punished. (important Other interpretations and themes  Over time, the Monster has also been read as a victim of the failed 18th c great utopian fantasy of by critics as a the complete control of nature which had animated the development of science in the course of the 18th century (of great intense scientific advancement).  There’s also a strong political interpretation of Frankenstein  for Franco Moretti, the monster embodies/is a political allegory of of the feared emerging industrial proletariat of early 19th century. Why? To begin with, because Frankenstein’s creature is a body assembled with limbs and pieces of other bodies. Where did they came from? Anatomical science could advance in the course of the 18th and 19thc entury thanks through the research of anatomists who in order to study and understand the functioning of the human body, needed fresh corps to practice on. In England, it would not be possible to access/use the bodies of the entire population because the only legally supplied corpses in small numbers to the official anatomists were those of the criminals who were executed, especially murders. They were handed over to the anatomist as a form of post-mortem punishment. But since those corpses were not enough, more bodies were illegaly provided by the so-called Resurrection men/Body Snatchers, who were basically criminals. They robbed the freshly interred corpses of the poor from the local cemeteries. Since these were bodies of poor people whose families could not even sometimes afford proper funerals, they would not be controlled. In 1831-32 the “Anatomy Act” (a law) established that instead of using only murders’ corpses for dissections, the government could/should confiscate the bodies of the poor who had died in the work houses (prisons for the destitutes forced to work in exchange for food and lodging). The State would take the bodies of the poor by force in order to supply them to doctors. One of the reasons why this Act was passed was an infamous case of illegal trading of corpses that took place in Edinburgh, where two men, W. Burke and W. Hare were accused of murdering people in order to sell their bodies. Frankenstein published in 1818, but at the time the practice of body snatching was still thriving at the time.  Historical context to which we must ascribe the practice of using dissection for medical/scientific purposes. In the novel there is no mention of specific means that Victor uses in order to procure the raw material that enables him to create the creature, but of course you see why a marxist critic like Franco Moretti read the Frankenstein figure as an allegory of the fear of an emerging industrial proletariat who would rebel to the massive exploitation to which it was subjected, even in death.  It is obviously a fantasy about the mystery of birth and death, the mystery of generation and the violation of nature  violation one of the key themes, violation of dignity as well when the creature feels that he has been thrown into the world but then left completely abandoned.  Another very important theme/point: the dread of maternity 1) autobiographical trait: the fact that M Shelle has probably experienced all the pains and fears of maternity, and very little joy, despite the love for her child. (Shelley’s traumatic biography as indirect cause of her mother’s death and the mother of 3 stillborn/dead children….); 2) this, the horror and dread of maternity, is an allegorically transposed theme of the story. There are no female characters in the story who are happy, they’re all either silenced or eliminated/killed.  Perhaps the most constant theme of the novel is that of the danger of extreme knowledge/of pursuing knowledge to the end without boundaries and fear. Both V. and Walton share the urge to cross the line, go forward, push the boundaries of their thirst for knowlede: 1) Walton is an explorer, his goal is that of geographical conquest 2) Frankenstein is a scientist, primacy and authority of science is what matters most for him  Common aspects: they both are pioneers in a way, they want to make progress beyond established limits, they share the same suffering and death fate. (Presence of women not contemplated, they have no female companions in their enterprises.) Structure of the novel Epistolary form /structure written with a complex set of narrative frames, under the probable influence of Richardson’s epistolary novel Clarissa  The different narratives (Walton/Frankenstein/the creature/other characters like Elizabeth, Alphonse, etc) are not omniscient : as a result, the « true » story is a complex collation of pespectives, an interplay of the different narratives. 1. In the outermost layer/1st narrative frame : the story is told by an explorer, Robert Walton, who describes his attempt to reach the North Pole and his encounter with Victor Frankensteinand in a series of letters he writes to his sister (Margaret Saville). She doesn’t appear or speak, but she has a very important role because she represents the normative/average reader. When Victor dies, Walton discovers the Creature, full of grief and horror, bending over the corpse (the Creatures returns to say farewell to his creator).  The Creature describes his development after his flight and his experiences of rejection. Within his story we also learn about the history of the De Lacey family (sub-plot) and of Felix and Safi. This innovative structure problematizes the point of view: no omniscient point of view = no narrative thread is all encompassing. Therefore, the true story of Frankenstein? Anticipation of what will become a very popular narrative structure: a collation/combination of stories, povs and perspectives. This fits nicely such a problematic philosophical and existential story.  it means that so extreme, so radical is the story being told, that one straightforward, all encompassing point of view (pov) would probably not be adequate.  The story told by Victor (dying) is his attempt to make sense of his story as a very gifted, talented and happy genevan (swiss) scientist with friends and family who is obsessed by the idea of creating/recreating the mistery of life. He manages to infuse an assemblage of bodily parts with life through an experimental use of electricity (Alessandro Volta had discovered electricity n the second half of the 18th c). But once he has created the creature, he is so horrified that he refuses to look after it/him. Victor is so sickened and shocked by what he has done that he flees his laboratory. Then he learns that his younger brother has been killed, and he soon discovers that the murderer has been the monster, who has sworned vengeance to him because he feels that he’s been abandoned and that he does not deserve this treatment.  Another innocent person murdered: Justine Moritz, who is the 2nd victim, but the 1s female one. She’s accused of William’s murder, irrationally and unjustly, and she’s executed. Another detail which points to the persecution in the novel. Victor finally encounters the monster on the top of a mountain where he has sought refuge  confrontation between the 2 = one of the climactic moments of the novel, in which the very violent and harsh refusal and indictment of Victor is matched by the accusation that the creature moves to Victor (of not taking responsibility). Moment of truth between the 2, where evidently the creature prevails in ethical term. The 1. Robert Walton’s letters 2. Victor Frankenstein’s tale 3. The creature’s tale 2. Within this realatively realistic layer/tale, there is the account of Frankenstein, who tells Walton the story of how he created and abandoned the monster, the revenge it took upon him by destroying those he loved most, and his eventual pursuit of the Creature. 3. Further narratives can be found within Victor’s (letters from Elizabeth and V’s father), but in the central layer of narrative there’s the Creature’s tale. monster begs Victor to create a companion for him, a monster with whom to share his life, and Victor initially refuses, then accepts. But, he will then destroy this new creation in a very violent way, throwing her off in the waters of the Lake (he’s in Scotland now, in the Oarkneys). He is clearly terrified at the prospect that this new creature might generate a progeny  again the obsession with the mistery of generativity. The Creature is so enraged that he is bent on (detemrined) destrying Victor that he does so by killing his best friend Henry, so that Victor begins to have all his dear ones killed by the creature, the last one being Elizabeth (his bride/wife to be). Elizabeth’s death is preceded by a very freudian moment: Victor has a nightmare in which right at the moment while he’s embracing her, he finds his dead mother in his arms (clearly very gothic and freudian). Eventually, Victor returns home and shortly after he finds his father dead of grief. Then, he deaparts in search of the monster, whom he tracks towards the North Pole. He almost catches him, but then the ice beneath them breaks and the monster is seen moving on along his progress towards the North  extremely important point because at the END of the narrative the CREATURE is NOT DEAD, but simply disappearing in the space of the novel, he’s reaching towards an ultimate border (the North Pole) = in symbolic terms it means that the narrative cannot simply contain him, there is no way to contain the monster, whereas Victor dies instead. The Creature returns to take his valediction (farewell speech) from Victor and encounters Walton, who sees him crying over Victor, and he tells Walton of his grief, solitude, suffering, hatred, and that now that his creator has died, he too can die and put an end to his suffering. The Creature is bound to die, but the reader never sees the actual death/corpse (important detail!). [very complex narrative from a conceptual pov, from a formal pov, from a moral pov]  Victor’s nightmare and the Creature’s apparitions There will be 3 occasions in which the Creature will be seen from a window, by the “dim and yellow lights of the moon”. They will all occur in non casual circumstances: 1. First apparition: soon after Frankenstein’s nightmare After rejecting the Creature, Frankenstein runs away and attempts to forget in sleep. He has a terrible nightmare in which Elizabeth, as he tries to embrace/kiss her, transforms into the rotting corpse of his mother  Moreover, the nightmare is symbolic/significant because: a) juxtaposition nightmare/creature = anticipates Elizabeth’s death, on the wedding night (the creature’s final revenge). It “prophetically” suggests that bringing the monster to life is equivalent to killing Elizabeth. b) Elizabeth changing into the mother’s corpse = emphasizes Frankenstein’s circumvention (aggiramento) of the normal channels of procreation, as if giving life to the creature eliminates his mother. 2. Second apparition: while Frankenstein is tearing the female creature apart Here the Creature threatens Victor saying that he will return on his wedding night (the night he will kill Elizabeth). From this moment on the Creature realizes he’s doomed to be excluded from the domestic world, and devotes himself to its annihilation. 3. Third apparition: as Victor awakens, having fainted after realising that Elizabeth was dead Literary sources/echoes – intertextuality In addition to all these narratives, there are numerous references to extratextual narratives: a) strong influence of Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Lyrical Ballads), a tale of an alienated individual and the disturbance of natural order which is quoted at the beginning of the novel, with an allusion not only to the sea imagery and the theme of the exploration of the seas, but also to the crossing of a boundary. Direct allusion to his “passionate enthusiasm for the dangerous mysteries of the ocean”. Like him, he sets out for the land of mist and snow; Frankenstein tries to dissuate Walton from pursuing his way too further and quotes some lines from the Rime. (Lyrical Ballads), many of my materials; and often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation, whilst, still urged on by an eagerness which perpetually increased, I brought my work near to a conclusion.”  He refers to the place where he would conduct his experiments in secrecy.  filthy: conveys the judgement that he retrospectively gives to his actions/deeds, not so much to the material aspect of his creation. - slaughterhouse: mattatio / the dissecting room: the place where doctors would conduct their experiments on cadavers, legal or illegal. Chapter 5  1st page: the moment in which the creature takes life. It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips. […] but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room and continued a long time traversing my bedchamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep. At length lassitude succeeded to the tumult I had before endured, and I threw myself on the bed in my clothes, endeavouring to seek a few moments of forgetfulness. But it was in vain; I slept, indeed, but I was disturbed by the wildest dreams. I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, I embraced her, but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms; a shroud enveloped her form, and I saw the grave-worms crawling in the folds of the flannel. I started from my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered my forehead, my teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed; when, by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window shutters, I beheld the wretch— the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs.  Victor basically flees from his own creation, he abandons the creature and flees from responsibilities  The creation of the monster, therefore, marks 1) a point of no return, as well as 2) the awareness in Victor that he can no longer control anything: his own life and expectations and the outcome of his 2 years/lifetime concern and endeavours. Chapter 7 (Begins with a letter written by Victor’s father in which he states that William is dead)  Monstrosity of the creature: important. Physical monstrosity justifies the physical repulsion that Victor feels, therefore his refusal to act ethically. Eventually, Victor is the only parent, the only “motherly and fatherly” figure to the Creature, which he refuses all together on the grounds of the physical monstrosity which he interprets as a general monstrosity, he is the abject  category of the abject, that is basically all those bodily parts, fluids, excrements which are not acceptable, not part of the idealized normative conception of the body. Inevitably, a corpse is also possibly a form of the abject, and the Creature is made of discarded bodily parts, so he is a sort of “huge abject” form. “I could not be mistaken. A flash of lightning illuminated the object, and discovered its shape plainly to me; its gigantic stature, and the deformity of its aspect, more hideous than belongs to humanity, instantly informed me that it was the wretch, the filthy daemon, to whom I had given life. What did he there? Could he be (I shuddered at the conception) the murderer of my brother? No sooner did that idea cross my imagination, than I became convinced of its truth; my teeth chattered, and I was forced to lean against a tree for support. The figure passed me quickly, and I lost it in the gloom. Nothing in human shape could have destroyed the fair child. He was the murderer! I could not doubt it. The mere presence of the idea was an irresistible proof of the fact. I thought of pursuing the devil; but it would have been in vain, for another flash discovered him to me hanging among the rocks of the nearly perpendicular ascent of Mont Saleve, a hill that bounds Plainpalais on the south. He soon reached the summit, and disappeared.”  The creature also flees the scene and he seeks shelter, he tries to hide himself, on the mountains  typical sublime space. Sublime also found in the great mountain heights among the natural spaces.  It is precisely on top of a mountain that the encounter between the 2 takes place “I considered the being whom I had cast among mankind, and endowed with the will and power to effect purposes of horror, such as the deed which he had now done, nearly in the light of my own vampire, my own spirit let loose from the grave, and forced to destroy all that was dear to me.”  The Creature is compared to a vampire that sucks the blood, therefore the life, out of Victor. That is precisely what, in fact, will also help us conceptualise the creature as a liminal figure (= liminal beings are entities that cannot easily be placed into a single category of existence). Much like the vampire belongs both to the living and the dead and struggles between these worlds, the vampire is a creature that crosses boundaries, and because of this, it destabilises the normality of life. The Creature is alive, but he is created out of death. Vol II In Vol II Victor is looking for some sort of relief, and he climbs the Mount nearby to find some solace. Chapter 2 (cap. 10 se il testo non è diviso in volumi) I remained in a recess of the rock, gazing on this wonderful and stupendous scene. The sea, or rather the vast river of ice, wound among its dependent mountains, whose aerial summits hung over its recesses. Their icy and glittering peaks shone in the sunlight over the clouds. My heart, which was before sorrowful, now swelled with something like joy; I exclaimed, ‘Wandering spirits, if indeed ye wander, and do not rest in your narrow beds, allow me this faint happiness, or take me, as your companion, away from the joys of life.’  this is a quintessentially romantic novel  spiritual exaltation that accompanies the character, a kind of aspiration to a superior state of being which we can find.  the following unexpected encounter with the Creature counteracts all his aspirations to happiness. The dialogue between Victor and the Creature is very strong, harsh, but there is one point that is made clear at the beginning that is very important (remember Frye’s interpretation of Frankenstein as a precursor of the existential thriller)  the Creature basically tells Victor that he will never free himself from him until one of them is dead  typical trope of the “dueling” enemies who fight one another throughout the plot. “As I said this I suddenly beheld the figure of a man, at some distance, advancing towards me with superhuman speed. He bounded over the crevices in the ice, among which I had walked with caution; his stature, also, as he approached, seemed to exceed that of man. I was troubled; a mist came over my eyes, and I felt a faintness seize me, but I was quickly restored by the cold gale of the mountains. I perceived, as the shape came nearer (sight tremendous and abhorred!) that it was the wretch whom I had created. I trembled with rage and horror, resolving to wait his approach and then close with him in mortal combat. He approached; his countenance e bespoke bitter anguish, combined with disdain and malignity, while its unearthly ugliness rendered it almost too horrible for human eyes. But I scarcely observed this; rage and hatred had at first deprived me of utterance, and I recovered only to overwhelm him with words expressive of furious detestation and contempt. ‘Devil,’ I exclaimed, ‘do you dare approach me? And do not you fear the fierce vengeance of my arm wreaked on your miserable head? Begone, vile insect! Or rather, stay, that I may trample you to dust! And, oh! That I could, with the extinction of your miserable existence, restore those victims whom you have so diabolically murdered!’ ‘I expected this reception,’ said the daemon. ‘All men hate the wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us. You purpose to kill me. How dare you sport thus with life? Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind. If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave them and you at peace; but if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends.’ ‘Abhorred monster! Fiend that thou art! The tortures of hell are too mild a vengeance for thy crimes. Wretched devil!”  Frankenstein calls the Creature different names (abhorred monster, wretched devil), he assimilates him to the devil, and he proclaims his rage. “You reproach me with your creation, come on, then, that I may extinguish the spark which I so negligently bestowed.’ My rage was without bounds; I sprang on him, impelled by all the feelings which can arm one being against the existence of another. He easily eluded me and said— ‘Be calm! I entreat you to hear me before you give vent to your hatred on my devoted head. Have I not suffered enough, that you seek to increase my misery? Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it. Remember, thou hast made me more powerful than thyself; my height is superior to thine, my joints more supple. But I will not be tempted to set myself in opposition to thee. I am thy creature, and I will be even mild and docile to my natural lord and king if thou wilt also perform thy part, the which thou owest me. Oh, Frankenstein, be not equitable to every other and trample upon me alone, to whom thy justice, and even thy clemency and affection, is most due. Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.’ ‘Begone! I will not hear you. There can be no community between you and me; we are enemies. Begone, or let us try our strength in a fight, in which one must fall.’”  The Creature’s entreaty (supplica): first example of how the monster has become incredibly articulate, he can speak very well, rethorically capable, he’s very persuasive (totally unrealistic). He has learnt so by living near/indirectly partaking the life of a family where love and harmony thrived (the cottagers)  Important statement: the Creature is not an existentially anguishes, alienated, self-destructive XXth c character, he understands and praises the value of life