Overall: a denouement before a final showdown. One more go around with the fam.
Maybe I’m just approaching this book the wrong way. Frankenstein seems sort of divided in what it wants to be in many ways. On the one hand you’ve got a story concerned with human nature, nature nature, and what the relation is between a being and its creator. On the other hand is a fairly routine melodrama about the relationship between Victor Frankenstein and his reluctance/inability to relate easily to his family. Which could also be a compelling story, Kafka did wonders with this theme, but the way it’s written in Shelley just doesn’t seem to click with me.
I think some of it has to do with how little the characters seem to progress throughout this. Vic has undergone some slight change, but there really isn’t much that distinguishes the Vic we found up in the Arctic from the one who’s lamenting his situation in Switzerland. Characters like Clerval and Elizabeth, likewise, are pretty static. Maybe they’ve got something going on by way of growth internally, but Victor does not seem particularly interested in finding out what that is. There’s only so many times I can hear people worry about Victor and he turns them away with the same schtick before it starts to get old and I wonder whether these people would actually stick around Vic. I’m not saying that they should leave him, but so many times in our world people who go through this kind of depression wind up isolated and it feels a little disingenuous of Shelley to present such an unconditionally supportive network for Vic. They’re all kind of props to support his story rather than people.
Vic and his father return to Switzerland, where Vic decides that, since Adam might decide to murder more people during the interim between now and his marriage, he’ll just go ahead and get married.
Elizabeth writes a letter wondering whether or not Victor loves her or not. Again, this feels like we’re rehashing stuff. Vic already had this conversation with Papa Frank and it was the same conclusion reached. Yes, Vic does love Elizabeth.
The two are wed and go to Elizabeth’s family’s villa for their honeymoon. It seems to be going fine, but Vic is concerned that things will soon become much much worse. His narrative also confirms this when he says that this was the last time he felt happiness. I’m predicting Elizabeth is going to die next chapter, and we’ll find out how Vic came to be chasing Adam up in the Arctic.
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