Frankenstein Key Quotes

Frankenstein Key Quotes

1. Desire for Forbidden knowledge

   • "I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as a region of beauty and delight."
   • "I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited."
   • "It was the secretf of heaven and earth that I desired to learn." - Victor

2. Placing people on a pedestal

   • "...with a beam of benevolence and sweetness that i never saw equaled." - Walton on Victor
   • "...being heaven-sent and bearing a celestrial stamp in all her features." - Victor on Elizabeth
   • "...angel mother..."
   • "...silver hair and benevolent countenance of the aged cottager won my reverence while... the girl enticed my love." - Monster on the De Laceys

3. Isolation

   • "I shunned my fellow creatures"
     • "Solitude I coveted" - Victor says when he leaves to create the female monster.
   • "I was benevolent; my soul glowed with love and humanity: but am i not alone, miserably alone?"
     • "I am an outcast in the world for ever... To be friendless is indeed to be unfortunate."

4. Pursuit

   • "I formed in my own heart a resolution to pursue my destroyer to death" - Victor
   • "Sometimes I thought that the fiend followed me... When these thoughts possessed me, I would not quit Henry... but followed him as his shadow, to protect him."
   • "I paid no visit to Geneva, but was engaged, heart and soul, in the pursuit of some discoveries."

5. Doubles/Doppleganger

   • "I should attempt the creation of a being like myself..."
     • "But in Clerval I saw the image of my former self"
   • "I bore a hell within me" - said by both Victor and the Monster
     • "Cursed, cursed creator!" - Monster "Cursed, cursed be the fiend" - Victor
   • "...This was indeed a godlike science, and I ardently desired to become acquainted with it" - Monster says about people speaking

6. Heroism in the novel

   • "if I could banish disease from the human frame" - Victor's initial heroic and noble quest
     • "...she fell into the rapid steam. I rushed from my hiding-place;and...saved her...She was senseless; and i endeavoured by every means in my power to restore animation."
     • "Return as heroes who have fought and conquered" - Victors says the Walton's men after they mutiny; he tries to persuade them to continue their quest.

7. the supernaturaal

   • "Its gigantic stature, and the deformity of its aspects, more hideous than belongs to humanity"
   • "with superhuman speed"
     • "I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence... I was wretched, helpless, and alone"

8. Macabre

   • ""but if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends."
   • "I collected bones from charnel-houses; and disturbed with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame"
   • "I heard a shrill and dreadful scream... I could feel the blood trickling in my veins and tingling in the extremities of my linbs
   • "a churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life"

9. Warnings

   • "I will not lead you on, unguarded and ardent as I was... Learn from me...how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge"
   • "Man! you may hate; but beware! your hours will pass in dread and misery"
   • "Are you mad, my friend?... peace! peace! learn my miseries, and do not seek to increase your own!

10. Sublime/the power of nature

    • "I discovered... the bright summit of Mont Blanc. I wept like a child. `Dear mountains! my own beautiful lake"
    • ""the solemn silence of this glorious presence - chamber of imperial Nature."
    • "...spoke of a powerful mighty as Omnipotence - and I ceased to fear" - Victor says about nature