its deadly weight yet hanging around my neck
Although this language may sound proverbial, we are actually witness here
to the actual occurrence of a cultural transformation into proverbial
status. The reference is, once again, specifically to Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," where
the dead albatross is hung around the Mariner's neck in the last stanza of Part 2, not to be
removed until the end of Part 4. Although the overtone of Victor's comment
is light, it does return us to the isolation of the far northern seas
where this story is being told and where earlier Coleridge's poem was
invoked for analogy by Walton (Letter
2.5). It may also remind us of the morning after the Creature's
endowment with life (1.4.4) when
Victor's sense of being haunted first descends on him.
