VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER VI

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER VI

1. Chapter Summary

   • Elizabeth writes a letter to Victor expressing her concern over his illness, and entreats him to write. She focuses on the story of Justine Moritz and the lives of those around her like little William.
     • After showing Clerval (who will study oriental languages) around Ingolstadt, Victor, repulsed by the sight of his professors and intruments, plans to return to Geneva.
       • Before his departure, he and Clerval take a tour of the country and delight in nature.

2. Chapter Analysis

   • WOMEN
     • ELIZABETH
       • "my own Elizabeth" - possessive
       • "You will find a happy, caring home...Your father's health is vigorous...How pleased you would be to remark the improvement of our Earnest!" - domesticity, family orientated
       • "Get well and return to us" - imperative, strength. Elizabeth is not a damsel in distress!
       • "The blue lake, and snow clad mountains - they never change; and I think our placid home and our contented hearts are regulated by the same immutable laws" - Romanticism, nature
       • "My trifling occupations take up my time...but I am rewarded by seeing none but happy, kind faces around me" - domesticity, family orientated
       • Narrative framing - Elizabeth as a narrator
     • JUSTINE
       • "through a strange perversity her mother could not endure her...when Justine was 12...(my aunt) prevailed on her mother to allow her to live at our house"
       • "Frank hearted and happy"
         • "most grateful little creature in the world"
           • "adored her protectress"
             • "grief had given her softness and a winning mildness to her manners"
               • "very clever and gentle, and extremely pretty"
       • Innocence and responsibility. Hindsight/unreliable narrator?
   • INNOCENCE OF WILLIAM
     • "little darling William"
       • "sweet laughing blue eyes"
         • "rosy with health"
     • foreshadows tragedy
   • FRIENDSHIP WITH CLERVAL
     • "Henry saw this and had removed all apparatus from my view...he perceived that I had acquired a dislike for the room which had previously been my laboratory"
     • "Clerval, who's eyes and feelings were always quick in discerning the sensations of others, declined the subject"
     • respect for Victor in sensing his agitation
     • "with the design of making himself the complete master of the Oriental languages...no inglorious career...enterprise" - ambition like Victor and Walton
     • "excellent friend! how sincerely did you love me and endeavour to elevate my mind!"
       • "A selfish pursuit had cramped and narrowed me, until your gentleness and affection warmed and opened my senses"
         • "burden" - albatross"
     • change in tense foreshadows Clerval's death - reminder of the narrative framing
   • ECSTASY AT END OF CHAPTER (TO BE JUXTAPOSED WITH DEPRESSION IN CHAPTER VII
     • "gay", "unbridled joy and hilarity"
   • NATURE AND ROMANTIC HAPPINESS
     • "additional strength from the salubrious air I breathed"
     • "Clerval again taught me to love the aspect of nature, and the cheerful faces of children"
     • "Happy inanimate nature had the power of bestowing on me the most delightful sensations"
     • "serene sky...verdant fields...ecstasy...divine...bloomed"