Name That Tune
"Alas! to me the idea of an immediate union with my cousin was one of horror and dismay."
Victor. It seems odd and telling that he would invoke the word "horror" about marriage!
Where does the creature promise to go if Victor creates him a companion?
South America
Once Victor promises, however reluctantly, to make the companion, he immediately sets to work making it.
False. He drags his feet for months and then concocts a weirdly complex plan to go to England to study philosophy.
What device is most evident here? Victor is discussing the idea of marrying while also attempting to create a female companion: "Could I enter into a festival with this deadly weight yet hanging round my neck, and bowing me to the ground."
Metaphor comparing the burden to a literal weight. Interesting to note that the language and metaphor are evocative of actual hanging, which is how Justine died. Part of this burden is still his guilt over the role he played in her death.
Draw a thought-provoking comparison between Henry and Luke (THOHH).
Both are romantics and dilettantes. Neither seems overly serious about work or finding a purpose in life.
"I was alike ignorant; she might become ten thousand times more malignant than her mate, and delight, for its own sake, in murder and wretchedness."
Victor suddenly realizes the dangers of creating a female version of the creature.
For how long does Victor commit to studying in England?
Two years! He and Elizabeth are already in their 20s, an advanced age for marriage then. Mary was officially married at 19.
True or false: As Victor mulls over the issues of marriage, making a companion, and traveling to England, he contemplates the harm his family may be in from the creature?
True, and this is the first time he really does so. This begs the question of why he doesn't warn them more directly. Perhaps he can't without telling them about his role in creating the creature.
That Henry and Victor quote Wordsworth's famous poem "Tintern Abbey" is an example of which device?
An allusion.
Who says, "You can blast my other passions; but revenge remains—revenge, henceforth dearer than light or food!"
The creature
Who travels with Victor to England?
Henry
True or false: While working on creating the creature's companion on the isolated Scottish island, to his surprise, Victor finds himself enjoying the work.
False. He hates it and voices again and again feeling horror and loathing about what he's doing.
The fact that Victor tells Walton this only midway through his tale (and before Victor and Henry even reach England) is an example of which device?
"And where does he now exist? Is this gentle and lovely being lost for ever? Has this mind so replete with ideas, imaginations fanciful and magnificent, which formed a world, whose existence depended on the life of its creator; has this mind perished? Does it now only exist in my memory?"
Foreshadowing; it sounds a very foreboding note to anyone paying attention.
“It is well. I go; but remember, I shall be with you on your wedding-night.”
The creature is threatening Victor.
Victor tells us that he feels sealed off from humanity by the blood of which two people?
Justine and Williams.
True or false: Victor leaves Henry in Scotland to travel on alone to the Orkney Islands to create his creature alone.
True, and Henry wants to go with him.
When Victor states, "I am a blasted tree" what device is being used?
A perfect metaphor and a symbol. This speech also links back to the memory of the tree he had seen hit by lightning when he was a boy; that tree was also described as "blasted."
From which European city do Victor and Henry first set sail for England?
Rotterdam. There may be a pun on how this word looks on the page. Issues of "rot" and "damnation" will come to the forefront.
True or false: Victor comes to his senses just before completing the female companion and destroys her.
True. For the first time, he really starts to think about the larger implications for humanity.
When Victor describes the wind like this, "their tumult is but as the play of a lively infant," it is an example of which device?
A simile comparing the wind to a baby.