Post
🔩 Victor's always had this gap between desire+will and execution: the Creature made large because he couldn't handle small details; his narrative that he and the Creature will FIGHT to the death vs. the Creature easily evading him. It reaches an apex here with this line, which made me cackle... 1/
🔩 "I am weak; but surely the spirits who assist my vengeance will endow me with sufficient strength." Saying this, he endeavoured to spring from the bed, but the exertion was too great for him; he fell back, and fainted.
The implacability of nature; the inevitability of death. Neither... 2/
🔩 cares what narratives you have in your head. Walton's the same sort, talking about stirring the men's spirits, as if willpower and courage will and must conquer everything, coming up against the hard limit of the ice.
Someone posted earlier in the read about Shelley writing this in the Year... 3/
🔩 of No Summer, an illustration of nature's enduring power. I love it: Writing a story in the midst of a storm, about the limitations of the stories we tell ourselves. Victor wants first the glory of creation and then later a big showdown with his Creature, and gets neither, just the ice. 4/
🔩 Tho he does manage one more moment of being sad trash, just to send us off: "During these last days I have been occupied in examining my past conduct; nor do I find it blamable."
Victor. VICTOR! You died like you lived, with not a shred of self-awareness. I blame you enough for both of us. 5/5
Then he was like, "Maybe I shouldn't have done it. But if I hadn't done it, somebody would have done it anyway, so it might as well have been me."
Ah, progress doesn't care about your morality.
