Sublime

“I expected this reception,” said the dæmon. “All men hate the wretched; how then must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us. You purpose to kill me. How dare you sport thus with life? Do your duty

In his initial conversation with the scientific explorer Robert Walton, the narrator of this frame-tale novel,14 he refuses to share his secret knowledge: “I will not lead you on, unguarded and ardent as I then was, to your destruction and infallible misery.” Victor continues: “Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dange

I thanked my friend from my heart, but I did not speak. I saw plainly that he was surprised, but he never attempted to draw my secret from me; and although I loved him with a mixture of affection and reverence that knew no bounds, yet I could never persuade myself to confide in him that event which was so often present to my recollection,

there is a gentleman who may fall in love with you, seeing you almost every day.’ A certain change in Mary’s face was chiefly determined by the resolve not to show any change. ‘Does that always make people fall in love?’ she answered, carelessly; ‘it seems to me quite as often a reason for detesting each other.’ ‘Not when they are interesting and a

As I looked on him, his countenance expressed the utmost extent of malice and treachery. 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. The wretch saw me destroy the creature on whose future existence he depended for happiness, and, w

The target of Mary’s literary insight is not so much the content of Victor’s science as the way he pursues it. This target is the same in much of science fiction—a genre that Mary certainly helped to invent—especially the kind that takes a dystopian turn.4 We can choose to focus on the cautionary nature of the tale or on the part that continues to

Harmony was the soul of our companionship, and the diversity and contrast that subsisted in our characters drew us nearer together.