The creature, who seems to have been born gentle and so desirous to love and be loved, now experiences a "rage of anger," though he still cannot bring himself to hurt anything living. Instead, he decides to burn down the cottage in which the DeLacys had lived as a way to satisfy his intense anger. The creature has never been destructive before, and the rejection of the people on whom he'd hung all his hopes for acceptance and love caused him to begin to change in this way. When he lights the branch he intends to use to fire the cottage, he "danced with fury" around the dwelling, seeming to relish the experience of causing destruction. He must experience some level of satisfaction from this destruction because he goes on to realize, once he reaches Switzerland, that he can cause harm to Victor's own family and thereby achieve some satisfaction as well.