Why does Victor consider suicide? When do the thoughts overtake him?

How does this impact his relationships with his friends and family?

Why does this section of the novel begin with Victor's sojourn in the mountains?

Does he have an experience of the sublime?

What does the sublime offer him?

Compare Mary Shelley's description of the Alps with Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Mont Blanc."

Look carefully for images of fruitful and barren nature. What might these represent?

How do Victor's experiences in the mountains give way to his conversation with the creature?

Are you surprised by the creature's speech?

What does he claim to be the cause of his wickedness?

What does he request of Victor?

Consider again the layered nature of the novel. We are reading the creature's spoken tale through the veil of Victor's story that is being told to Walton and written down for Margaret (and us) to read. How might this impact the tale?

How does the creature remove himself from Victor's sight?

Read the chapters in which the monster details his education carefully.

How does he come to know his senses? Pain? Pleasure?

How is he like a child here? How unlike?

What notion of childhood/creation is contained here?

What does the monster learn from the De Laceys? What do we learn?

Consider the creature's relationship to language. Is it like or unlike Caliban's?

What is the creature's response upon first recognizing himself in a reflection?

How are the specific books the creature finds important?

What do they each teach the creature?

How is the creature like Adam or Satan? How is he different?

Compare the education and childhoods of Victor and his creation.

How does the creature first come to know human beings?

How do they respond to him?

Why does he find human beings to be complex contradictions?

What interactions with human beings cause the creature pain or anger?

How is each interaction different and specific?

How does the creature observe the De Lacey's?

What kind of family structure do they model?

Is their mother's absence significant?

How do Agatha, Felix, and their father relate to one another?

Felix's name means happiness. Why isn't he happy and what finally makes him so?

What might the creature have learned from this?

What does the creature contribute to the family?

Why does he think of them as his Òprotectors?Ó

Why doesn't his overture of friendship bear fruit?

How does he respond to failure?

Safie is our second foreign born love interest (Elizabeth being the first), how does her cultural otherness impact her gendered presentation?

Why doesn't Safie want to return to Turkey?

Is the social class of the De Lacey's important? Why or why not?

What about their dealings with the French legal system?

How is the creature's relationship with women different from his relationship with men?

What does he whisper to the sleeping Justine and why?

Why does the creature frame Justine?

How does the creature contextualize his loneliness?

What use did he have for William?

How is Victor's relationship to mankind different from the creature's? Does he see this distinction?

Consider the creature's claim that he would forgive all mankind for the sake of one friend. Do you recognize the Old Testament echo? How did that case work out?

How might this situation be different if the creature was female?

Is it possible to read the creature as female?

In what ways is the creature similar or dissimilar to the goblins, Grendel, and Caliban?

Is the creature an invention or creation? What is the difference?

Do you recognize the use of antithesis in this section of the novel (both on a sentence level and on one of general narrative)?

Consider the complex use of persona, tone and voice in this novel.

Who is speaking? When? Why?

At what distance are we from the speaker?

Does the tone of the various sections vary?

How does Mary Shelley's (or the implied author's) voice make itself known?