Summary

One evening as he sits in his laboratory, Victor begins to reflect on the possible consequences of creating a companion for the creature. He realizes that his second creation might turn out to be just as or even more malicious than his first. She might refuse to accompany the creature to South America, or the two creatures might hate each other. If they do go to the wilderness together, the creatures could have children and thereby begin a new race of beings who would terrorize humankind.

Victor is horrified by the idea that future generations might hate him for jeopardizing the survival of the entire human race just to secure safety for himself and his family. At that moment he sees the creature grinning malevolently at him through the window of his hut, and he tears the unfinished female creature apart. The creature howls with despair before vanishing into the night. Vowing never to resume his work, Victor leaves the laboratory.

Several hours later the creature returns to confront him for breaking his promise. Victor tells him he has resolved never to create another being like the creature, no matter the consequences. The creature swears revenge and ominously tells Victor to remember that he will be with him on his wedding night. After hearing the creature row away in a boat, Victor paces around his room in torment, wishing he hadn’t allowed him to escape. Believing the creature intends to murder him on his wedding night, he weeps for the pain his death will cause Elizabeth and vows not to die without putting up a “bitter struggle.”

Victor spends the morning wandering aimlessly around the island in despair, eventually falling asleep on the ground. When he wakes up in the evening he feels somewhat calmer. A fisherman delivers a letter from Clerval, who asks Victor to meet him at Perth and travel with him back to London, where he plans to prepare to sail for India. Victor decides to leave for Perth in two days. Late the next night he rows out to sea in a small skiff and throws the remnants of the female creature’s body overboard in a basket weighted with stones. Relaxed by the breeze and the sound of the waves, he stretches out in the bottom of the boat and falls asleep. When he wakes up, the sun is up, and a strong wind has pushed him far out to sea, leaving him totally lost. After several hours of drifting on the waves, convinced he will die and terrified of what the creature will do to his family and friends, Victor is overjoyed to sight land. He steers into the harbor of the first town he sees. While tying up his boat, he is surprised to be greeted with hostility by an angry-looking crowd. He learns that he has arrived in Ireland and must report to the local magistrate, Mr. Kirwin, on suspicion of murder. Though startled and fatigued, Victor complies, sure that he will easily prove his innocence.

Analysis

Victor begins to seriously consider the possible consequences of fulfilling his promise to the creature for the first time in Volume Three, Chapter Three. While he once looked forward to receiving the world’s gratitude and admiration for his scientific discoveries, he now fears that “future ages might curse me as their pest, whose selfishness had not hesitated to buy its own peace at the price, perhaps, of the existence of the whole human race.” That his actions might be selfish is an idea that has not registered with Victor until now.

While he ruminates, the creature appears in the moonlight at the window, confirming Victor’s fears of being approached by his creation as well as continuing the moonlight motif associated with the creature. Victor makes up his mind to destroy his unfinished work upon seeing the creature’s “ghastly grin.” It seems that, ultimately, Victor cannot look at the creature’s deformed face—which he himself created—without becoming convinced of the creature’s malevolence.

Although it follows a period of serious contemplation, the suddenness and violence of Victor’s destruction of the female creature continues his pattern of acting impulsively on his emotions: “I thought with a sensation of madness on my promise of creating another like to him, and trembling with passion, tore to pieces the thing on which I was engaged.” In so doing, he destroys the creature’s last hope of ever finding contentment.

The creature reminds Victor of the suffering and loneliness he has been made to endure, but Victor reacts without sympathy, addressing his creation as “Devil” and “Villain.” The creature calls Victor “Slave” and asserts that although Victor is his creator, he is Victor’s master and has the power to make him suffer. It is clear from the creature’s promises of revenge that, by betraying the creature and denying his one request, Victor has ensured his own ruin. Given the creature’s bitterness at being a denied a mate, however—and that his strategy so far has been to take vengeance on Victor by killing his loved ones—the reader might question Victor’s interpretation of the creature’s statement “I shall be with you on your wedding-night.”