my wanderings
Another important theme of the novel and of the age here resonates in
Victor's seemingly innocuous phrase. As the Ancient Mariner of Coleridge
has been invoked on several occasions in the novel, the reader may here
wish to see Victor, in his passive surrender to his obsession, as
willingly assuming that character's fate. But the idea goes considerably
beyond Coleridge's prototype. The notion of the Wandering Jew, cursed to be an eternal
vagabond for having taunted Christ on his way to the cross, stands behind
both Coleridge's and Mary
Shelley's conceptions; and, indeed, that myth
may be being evoked here on a particularly subtle level, as Victor's
turning his back on his own will to live assumes a psychological
counterpart to that taunting of the figure of redemption. The poet figure
of Percy Shelley's "Alastor" (1815), who wanders over some of
the same terrain as Victor in search of his visionary love, suggests yet
another context. Behind that figure is probably another conceptual avatar,
the peddler in Wordsworth's
Excursion (1814) who is
explicitly named the Wanderer, and who in that poet's conception is able
through his internal poise and just relationship with his natural
environment to maintain his balance amid the turbulence of life. Neither
of the Shelleys had much respect for that poem, but, needless to say,
Victor's balance in contrast to that of Wordsworth's peddler is seriously
awry.
