The decaying frame of the stranger
In her revisions Mary Shelley
seems intent to plant certain elements
crucial to the plot very early in its exposition. In this case Victor
Frankenstein's resuscitation in the short term is balanced by an
awareness of the underlying debility of his physique. Later on, both in
his autobiographical account and, afterwards, when Walton resumes the
narrative, he will manifest symptoms that a nineteenth-century reader
would identify with consumption -- that is to say, tuberculosis.
