mutilated one
The irony of the previous sentence is here almost grotesquely intensified.
The being to whom Victor originally gave "life and spirit" was so horribly
mutilated in his creation as to provoke universal aversion from all whom
he met. Now, in the text, Victor hopes in some way to rectify that lack of
initial perspective and clean up either what he once called his "filthy
creation" (1.3.6), or lacking success
at that aim, at least his own image. The secondary irony is that neither
he nor his Creature can expect an individual "posterity" since each has
denied the other the possibility of procreation. The posterity that will
determine their lasting reputations is thus composed solely of readers of
the present text that Victor is so assiduously determined to rewrite.
