I should be supposed mad
Given the past consequences on his friends and family of Victor's silence,
particularly in his never explaining to Clerval the possible danger to his
existence from accompanying him to Britain, Victor's continuing reticence
seems perverse. Yet, at the same time, when he is driven at last to
depose himself to the law, the fact that he is treated with patronizing
incredulity and wholly exonerated from any responsibility for the wake of
destruction that has visited his family circle (see 3.6.7), is a subtle touch on Mary Shelley's part. Conventional
human expectation, of necessity, protects itself from whatever is beyond
its normal range of experience.
