wishing for some mighty revolution
Victor's desire for an externally applied apocalyptic solution
that will break the logical circle he cannot escape is as
characteristic of him as the passivity into which he actually
retreats from the stress of events. Still, his figure resonates against
his contrasting application of the turning wheel a few paragraphs earlier
(see 3.4.4 and note), where its every revolution was
conceived as bringing new calamities upon him.
The term "mighty revolution" cannot but retain some of its political
charge in the context of post-Napoleonic Europe, particularly if connected
to world of undiscriminated wretchedness that Victor had been
contemplating before Mr. Kirwin entered to prepare him for his father's
arrival (3.4.6).
