Vol. 2 Chapters 1, 2 and 3

Chapter 1
-Victor returns to Belrive after the death of Justine: the family are in mourning.

-Victor then leaves his family and heads towards Chamounix, where he had visited as a child

Chapter 2
-Whilst travelling through the Alps, the creature appears to Victor.

-The creature and Victor have a confrontation, and the creature begins to tell his tale.

Chapter 3
-The creature introduces the De Lacey family through his tale, and tells of his early existence.

Key contextual information:

Enlightenment Period:

"thou hast made me more powerful than thyself; my height is superior to thine, my joints more supple."

- by making the monster somewhat superior to Victor highlights the idea that the rapidly increasing science is dangerous and will overtake human rationality and nature.

- Shelley's warning illustrated : Man cannot play God.

Rousseau's Noble Savage.

"I saw the figure of a man at a distance, and I remembered too well my treatment the night before, to trust myself in his power."

- creature is beginning to learn to distrust humans. This rejection he receives from humans is what causes him to turn revengeful and kill William, Justine etc.

- readers are provoked to ask: is the creature's actions justified?

- society causes the creature to be a monster: he is unloved, rejected, attacked, which makes him unloving, revengeful and violent.

Romantic Hero.

"The girl was young and of gentle demeanour, unlike, what I have since found cottages and farm house servants to be."

- being unlike others, therefore, being different, is seen as a positive thing by the monster.

- links to the  idea that being different and isolated from society is Romantic and courageous.

Themes which are highlighted:

The Sublime.

"Bending my steps towards the near Alpine Valleys, sought in the magnificence, the eternity of such scenes, to forget myself and my ephemeral, because human, sorrows."

"These sublime and magnificent scenes afforded me the greatest consolation that I was capable of receiving."

- Victor's sudden appreciation and dependency on the natural world, and it's sublimity is a contrast to when he is making the creature ("my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature") highlighting his realisation that nature is of greater importance than science.