When Victor finally decides to pursue the creature in Mary
Shelley's Frankenstein, he knows that the journey will be
difficult.
The information as to how to proceed after
Victor's father dies comes to him while visiting the graves of William, Elizabeth and
Alphonse. As Victor mourns those lost to him, he hears a loud and fiendish laugh.
Hovering nearby, the creature speaks:
'I am satisfied: miserable wretch! you have
determined to live, and I am
satisfied.'
At that moment
and since that time, Victor chases the monster in order to exact his revenge and destroy
the miserable aberrant being.
Initially, when Victor leaves
Geneva, he takes a sum of money and some of his mother's jewels. He describes how
difficult the journey has been:
How I have lived I hardly know; many times have
I stretched my failing limbs upon the sandy plain, and prayed for death. But revenge
kept me alive; I dared not die, and leave my adversary in being
[alive]...
...To you first entering on life, to whom care
is new, and agony unknown, how can you understand what I have felt?...I was cursed by
some devil, and carried about with me my eternal hell; yet still a spirit of good
followed and directed my steps; and when I most murmured, would suddenly extricate me
from seemingly insurmountable difficulties. Sometimes, when nature, overcome by hunger,
sunk under the exhaustion, a repast was prepared for me in the desert that restored and
inspirited me...I will not doubt that it was set there by the spirits that I had invoked
to aid me. Often, when all was dry, the heavens cloudless, and I was parched by thirst,
a slight cloud would bedim the sky, shed the few drops that revived me, and
vanish.
Victor's journey is
seemingly endless. He travels on and sometimes is only able to catch a glimpse of the
creature, see his footprints in snow, or hear from terrorized villagers that the
creature had passed his way. The journey is long, hazardous and frustrating. When death
seems just around the corner, some strength of the spirit of goodness Victor believes
has followed him, revives him and makes it possible for him to continue, either by
providing food or drink, or a clue as to where to direct his path next. Victor knows
that when all else fails, his need to avenge the deaths of his loved ones spurs him
on.
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