FRANKENSTEIN TIME WITH ALLIE: Chapter 21 and 22 Summary and Analysis

    


CHAPTER 21:

          At Mr. Kirwin’s office, Victor learns that a man in his mid-twenties was found dead on the shore with black marks on his neck.  And various witnesses testify that a boat much like Victor’s was seen at sea.  Victor is taken to see the body.  It is Clerval.  Victor falls into convulsions, and remains bedridden and delusional for two months.  The monster’s revenge and Victor’s ambition cost another innocent life.  The monster intentionally targets Victor’s closest family and friends, making Victor’s isolation as enforced as its own.  When Victor regains awareness he is still in prison.  Mr. Kirwin treats him kindly, advising him that he’ll likely be freed. He also tells Victor that his father has come to see him.  Yet unlike the monster, Victor still does have connections to other men and a family.  Two weeks later Victor is released because the court has nothing but circumstantial evidence against him. Despairing and determined to protect his family from the monster, Victor returns with his father to Geneva.  Victor’s release stands in contrast to Justine’s conviction. But Victor has his father helping him, while Victor stayed silent and did not help Justine.  

CHAPTER 22:

           En route to Geneva, they stop in Paris so Victor can regain his strength.  His father tries to help by getting him to engage with society, but Victor feels he has no right to.  Victor even tells his father he murdered Justine, William, and Clerval.  His father considers him deranged, and Victor says no more.  As Victor’s father seeks to draw him into society, Victor increasingly resembles the monster in his sense that he’s an outcast.  As part of his isolation, Victor continues to keep his deadly secrets.  While in Paris, Victor receives a letter from Elizabeth. She expresses her desire to marry Victor, but worries he may have taken another lover during his long absence.  Victor remembers the monster’s vow to be with him on his wedding night, and decides that whether he kills it or it kills him, at least he will be free.  He writes back that he wants to marry immediately, but adds that he has a terrible secret he will tell her the day after they are married.  Victor’s cutting himself off from society makes Elizabeth doubt his love for him.  But won’t waiting until a day after his wedding to tell his secret be too late?  A selfish half-confession by Victor, who thinks more about himself than Elizabeth.  A week later Victor and his father arrive in Geneva.  The wedding takes place ten days later.  Yet as Victor and Elizabeth sail to a cottage by Lake Como in Italy for their honeymoon, Victor’s fear of facing the monster dissolves his happiness.  Elizabeth tries to cheer him by pointing out the beauty in nature.  It doesn’t work.  By now a painfully familiar scene: Victor depends on the temporary relief of Nature and the support of his companion, now Elizabeth instead of Clerval or Alphonse, in order to ease his anxiety.  

 MAJOR THEME OF CHAPTER 21: 

Lost Innocence:

Frankenstein presents many examples of the corruption of youthful innocence. The most obvious case of lost innocence involves Victor.  A young man on the cusp of adulthood, Victor leaves for university with high hopes and lofty ambitions.  He aims to explore “unknown powers” and enlighten all of humanity to the deepest “mysteries of creation,” but his success and his pride brings an end to his innocence.  He creates a monster that reflects back to him the many flaws inherent in his own species (an unquenchable thirst for love, a tendency toward violence, and a bloodthirsty need for justice and revenge) and in himself (prejudice based on appearance).  And, in turn, Victor’s cruel “un-innocent” behavior also destroys the monster’s innocence.

 

FRANKENSTEIN TIME WITH ALLIE: Chapter 19 and 20 Analysis

SUMMARY/ANALYSIS:

Victor and Clerval arrive in London in October. Victor continues to despair, avoiding people unless they have information that can help him create a second monster.  Clerval, in contrast, is how Victor used to be: excited by learning and wanting to meet and talk to everyone.  Clerval’s innocence contrasts with Victor and shows the joy and delight Victor’s ambition cost him. 

Victor and Clerval travel to Scotland.  There, Victor leaves Clerval with a friend and travels on alone.  He goes to a remote island in the Orkney’s, sets up a lab, and works in solitude on his secret project.  Once again Victor isolates himself from society. Whenever he does this, he makes bad, reckless decisions that cause disaster.  One night in his lab, Victor worries that the new creature he’s creating might refuse to live away from humans, or that the two monsters might produce a “race of devils.” Just then he looks up and sees the monster “grinning” at the window. Overwhelmed by loathing, Victor destroys his work. Outside, the monster howls in agony, and disappears.  The monster might have been grinning in joy at the sight of its companion. But Victor’s superficial prejudice is too powerful. He once again betrays the monster’s trust and sentences it to permanent isolation.  Hours later, the monster returns to Victor’s lab. It now refers to Victor only as “Man” and vows revenge. It promises: “I shall be with you on your wedding night.” Victor thinks the monster means to kill him on that night, and fears for Elizabeth left alone as a widow.  The monster now sees Victor as its enemy, as “Man,” and vows revenge. Victor’s fear for his own life shows he doesn’t understand the monster’s true misery: isolation.  A letter soon arrives from Clerval suggesting they resume their travels. Victor gathers up his laboratory materials and rows out into the ocean to dump them. Victor is so happy he takes a nap in his boat. But he wakes into rough weather and can’t get back to shore. Just as he begins to panic, the winds ease.  Victor panics in the boat because he fears being cut off from land, from human society. It is the same fear as the monster’s, but Victor’s prejudice doesn’t let him recognize it.  When Victor lands a group of angry townspeople gathers around his boat. He’s a suspect in a murder that occurred the previous night, and sent to meet with Mr. Kirwin, a local magistrate.  A cliffhanger ending; it seems likely the monster has already taken some revenge, but how?

MAJOR THEM ALERT!

REVENGE!!!!!!!

In taking revenge, two things happen to the monster. First, it ensures that it will never be accepted in human society. Second, because by taking revenge the monster eliminates any hope of ever joining human society, which is what it really wants, revenge becomes the only thing it has. As the monster puts it, revenge became “dearer than light or food.”

FRANKENSTEIN TIME WITH ALLIE: Chapter 16 Analysis

           After reading chapter 16, I discovered many important themes and ideas that are important to the further development of the monster's social, emotional, and academic being.  Here is a brief summary/analysis with some basic themes that occur in this chapter as well as many others: 

Summary/Analysis 

In this chapter, The family’s rejection plunges the monster into a fit of rage. But the beauty of the next day calms him. He decides to approach De Lacey again to try to make amends.  The monster’s faith in old De Lacey shows its last gasp of innocence, saving it from the rage born of rejection.  But by the time the monster reaches the cottage, the De Lacey’s have moved out. He sees Felix terminating his lease with the landlord, and never sees any of them again. His last link with society destroyed, the monster gives in to rage and a desire for revenge. He burns down the cottage and heads for Geneva and Victor.  Its innocence and hopes of inclusion in society dashed, the monster is left with only pain, and naturally wants to hurt those who hurt it. That includes human society (symbolized in the house he burns) and its creator, Victor.  At one point along the way the monster saves a beautiful little girl from drowning in a stream, only to be shot by her guardian. His suffering only feeds his desire for revenge.  Another example of humanity’s tendency toward prejudice, which only increases the monster’s desire for revenge.  After a few weeks, the monster makes it to Geneva. There he encounters a young boy. Thinking the boy would be too young to be horrified by his appearance, the monster approaches him. But the boy is terrified, and shouts that his father, Frankenstein, will kill the monster. The monster silences the boy by strangling him. The boy dies.  Again the monster shows an innocent belief in man, this time that the young will be less prejudiced than the old. His hopes again dashed, coupled with the boy’s connection to Victor, spur the monster to uncontrollable revenge.

MAJOR THEME ALERT!

The true evil in Frankenstein is not Victor or the monster, but isolation. When Victor becomes lost in his studies he removes himself from human society, and therefore loses sight of his responsibilities and the consequences of his actions. The monster turns vengeful not because it’s evil, but because its isolation fills it with overwhelming hate and anger. And what is the monster’s vengeance? To make Victor as isolated as it. Add it all up, and it becomes clear that Frankenstein sees isolation from family and society as the worst imaginable fate, and the cause of hatred, violence, and revenge.

POEM TIME WITH ALLIE: Spring Pools by Robert Frost

                Along with my favorite poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, I also enjoy many of Robert Frost's other poems, such as Spring Pools.  I grew up reading and hearing Robert Frost poems from parents, who both have many poetry books filled with Frost's poems.  Here is the poem, Spring Pools, another one of my favorites:


Spring Pools

 These pools that, though in forests, still reflect
The total sky almost without defect,
And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,
Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,
And yet not out by any brook or river,
But up by roots to bring dark foliage on.
The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods---
Let them think twice before they use their powers,
To blot out and drink up and sweep away,
These flowery waters and these watery flowers,
From snow that melted only yesterday. 



My Analysis:

Humans are romantic, and tend to identify themselves with nature.  In poetry, nature and seasons are good ways to express one’s emotions.
"Spring Pools" by Robert Frost talks about the poet’s feelings for the spring season, which tends to pass way too quickly (line 12). Frost relates springtime with happiness and opportunity for new beginnings.  For example, the pools of water formed by melted snow from the passing winter and all the flowers around it indicate it is springtime (lines 11& 12).  The snow that melted recently is considered as the better aspect of life, leaving behind the end of a cold, gloomy winter and entering the beginning of a bright, beautiful spring. We can relate this to life itself, because humans always want to leave the bad behind and start fresh and new.  When Frost writes to let the "summer woods think twice before they use their powers" (line 8 & 9), he is advising the woods to think twice about absorbing the water, because this is a sign that the summer will end.  Frost knows nature cannot stop; he just wants it to slow its course.  This is obviously personification, which appears more than once throughout the poem, since woods cannot think nor stop it’s course.  This is clearly a situation in which humanity clings to emotions and opportunity.  He wishes to be happy as long as he can.