anonymous aardvark

Self portraits

we know by victor's account that he's been tormented by suicidal thoughts and carried out an attempt at his life during his travels back to geneva from ireland. these sentiments repeatedly appear throughout the fourth chapter, to quote a few:

[...] but if it be all true, if indeed I did not dream, I am sorry that I am still alive to feel this misery and horror.

I was overcome by gloom and misery, and often reflected I had better seek death than remain miserably pent up only to be let loose in a world replete with wretchedness. At one time I considered whether I should not declare myself guilty, and suffer the penalty of the law, less innocent than poor Justine had been.

[...] some destiny of the most horrible kind hangs over me, and I must live to fulfil it, or surely I should have died on the coffin of Henry.

At these moments I often endeavoured to put an end to the existence I loathed; and it required unceasing attendance and vigilance to restrain me from committing some dreadful act of violence.

the letter he receives from elizabeth becomes something of a turning point. the creature's words are victor's first thought upon reading it, the possibility of his death or miserable life after defeating the monster what he thinks about before considering elizabeth's or his assumed happiness in the equation.

This letter revived in my memory what I had before forgotten, the threat of the fiend — “I will be with you on your wedding-night!” Such was my sentence [...] On that night he had determined to consummate his crimes by my death. Well, be it so; a deadly struggle would then assuredly take place, in which if he was victorious, I should be at peace, and his power over me be at an end. If he were vanquished, I should be a free man. Alas! what freedom? [...]

the vision of his own death as inevitable is what informs his decisions from this moment on. under the guise of bringing happiness to his father, who he knows wants the union to happen, and elizabeth, who he believes to be wanting of it, victor ignores his miseries (an act that his family instills in him, which he has in common with elizabeth and is, what i believe, ultimately keeping them from true understanding of one another) and considers his death a worthy price to pay and believes it a fulfillment of his destiny.

Sweet and beloved Elizabeth! I read and re-read her letter, and some softened feelings stole into my heart, and dared to whisper paradisaical dreams of love and joy; but the apple was already eaten, and the angel’s arm bared to drive me from all hope. Yet I would die to make her happy. If the monster executed his threat, death was inevitable; yet, again, I considered whether my marriage would hasten my fate.

I resolved, therefore, that if my immediate union with my cousin would conduce either to her’s or my father’s happiness, my adversary’s designs against my life should not retard it a single hour.

Soon after my arrival my father spoke of my immediate marriage with my cousin. I remained silent. “Have you, then, some other attachment?” “None on earth. I love Elizabeth, and look forward to our union with delight. Let the day therefore be fixed; and on it I will consecrate myself, in life or death, to the happiness of my cousin.”

[...] when he had pronounced the words, “I shall be with you on your wedding-night,” I should regard the threatened fate as unavoidable. But death was no evil to me, if the loss of Elizabeth were balanced with it; and I therefore, with a contented and even cheerful countenance, agreed with my father, that if my cousin would consent, the ceremony should take place in ten days, and thus put, as I imagined, the seal to my fate.

the remembrance of the creature's threatening promise is instrumental to the eagerness with which victor accepts the prospect of the incestuous marriage upon his arrival, something he's been dreading and putting away throughout the novel is now hastily put together under the belief of giving elizabeth a taste of happiness and himself the release of death, the longing for which deeply colors his character at this particular point of the story. death is something destined, it's a penalty for the creature's (victor's) actions, it's the end of his suffering and it's intrinsically linked to consummating the act of incest expected of him and elizabeth since childhood.

Lily Rose Fine