astonishment of the students
The condescension Victor so easily adopts toward Professor Krempe here
seems to extend as well to his peers among the students. Within another
chapter we will witness yet a further example of how Victor's sense of
superiority combines with an almost instinctive aversion to those he
considers in some sense inferior to him. His observation here may thus be
intended by Mary Shelley to help
prepare us for his sudden rejection of the Creature to whom he gives
life. Yet it might also be designed to bear a double reading: not
just that Victor's fellow-students are in awe of his commitment, but that
they are aware of something neurotic in its intensity.
