the wildest rage of some uncontrollable passion
Rage has appeared such an emotional constant of this novel that the
reader may be surprised in reflection to realize that the emotion never
occurs in Volume 1, but enters the space of the fiction in the encounter
of the Creature and Victor Frankenstein on the Mer-de-Glace of Mont
Blanc. There the figure embroiled in rage is Victor (2.2.3). In the Creature's
own narration something like this present unrestrained rage occurs when
he burns down the cottagers' house (2.8.4). Thereafter, the novel evinces a
smoldering fire, ready to burst into flame at any point: we witness it in
the successive "rage" that grips Victor (2.9.1) and the Creature (2.9.2) over the question of the creation
of a companion. Beginning with chapter
3 of the third volume, rage is an
abiding emotion of Victor Frankenstein's, concomitant with the fever that
wastes his body. Now that he is dead, it is as if that violent emotion
were floating free of his body, the sole evidence of the bond driving
both these figures to their destruction. It is notable that the rage
inhabiting the Creature is not against Victor but himself.
