As he stands over Victor Frankenstein's coffin, it is a
wretched and miserable creature who exclaims,
readability="9">
"That is also my victim! ...in his murder my
crimes are consummated; the miserable series of my being is wound to its close! Oh,
Frankestein!...what does it avail that I now ask thee to pardon me? I, who
irretrievably destroyed thee by detroying all thou
lovedst....
The creature
continues to reproach himself for his deeds. When Walton approaches him and accuses him
of "diabolical vengeannce," the creature tells Walton that he, too, has suffered great
agony and remorse for his deeds. Like Victor, the creature has been consummed with "a
frightful selfishness," a selfishness which made him adhor
himself:
"I
knew I was preparing for myself a deadly torture, but I was the slave, not the master,
of an impulse which I detested, yet could not disobey....Evil thenceforth became my
good. Urged thus far, I had no choice but to adapt my nature to an element which I had
willingly chosen. The completion of my demonicacal design became an insatiable
passion. and now it is ended; there is my last
victim."
In this passage, the
reader perceives the parallels between Victor and his creature. The lure of science and
its temptations for greatness have consummed all that is generous and benign in Victor.
And, as a product of science, the creature represents this hubris
of science that dominates that which is human. It is only after Victor dies, that the
creature's love reemerges. He tells Walton,
readability="10">
"....Think ye that the groans of Clerval were
music to my ear? My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy; and,
when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change
without torture, such as you cannot even
imagine.”
In his terrible
alienation, the creature continues, he hoped to meet with beings who would love in him
the "excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding." But, now crime has degraded
him and he despairs of any hope of finding happiness,
readability="5">
" Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends
and associates in his deolation; I am
alone."
The creature, thus,
declares himself more wretched than Victor, his agony deeper than Vicytor's,
for his evil deeds will rankle in his soul until "death shall close them for ever."
Unable to bear this agony of which he speaks, the creature vows to die by fire, "exult
in the agony of the torturing flames." The creature, more human than Victor, cannot bear
his crimes nor his terrible alienation.
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