some great crime
The reader might well wish to contemplate the oddly contradictory
character of this formulation. Although Victor can exonerate himself by
means of analytical logic, the process is not liberating. Instead,
psychologically he finds himself in a limbo of uncertainty and incapacity,
haunted by a dread he can neither escape nor define. Given the
increasingly psychotic symptoms he will reveal in the later chapters of
the novel, this early formulation may be considered a touchstone for
Victor's successive mental breakdowns.
