in continuation
At this moment of Victor's desparate exhaustion and extreme isolation, Mary Shelley tellingly reasserts the
centrality of human continuity and connectedness. Her sudden reassignment
of the role of narrator, from Victor to Walton, also alters its assumed
audience. A ship's captain listening to the solitary voice of a dying
refugee in the Arctic wilderness shares in that sense of impacted
solitude. In contrast, the vicarious experience of Walton's sister, who is
addressed directly in the next sentence and who presumably will read this
transmitted account in London, takes
place at the heart of human civilization. This inserted tag may have a
second function as well, that of reinforcing the question posed in the
last paragraph of Victor's narrative, whether Walton will honor his plea
and continue Victor's obsessive pursuit of the Creature.
- Critical Approaches:
- Themes:
