Ernest
In revising her novel Mary Shelley totally changed Ernest's state of
health but added nothing that would give him a reason for existing in the
novel except to carry on the family name in obscurity. In both texts,
however, Ernest serves as a foil to the overly abstract and abstracted
mind of his brother Victor. As a farmer (1818) or a mercenary keeper of
the peace (1831), Ernest's concern would be with the given order of
things rather than with what underlies it conceptually. In both texts
(but paradoxically more pronounced in the third edition, many years after
Byron provided an immediate context for her writing), Ernest bears a
striking similarity to the Chamois Hunter of Manfred, which Byron
began after the Shelleys' departure in 1816 and also set in
Switzerland. See Act I, scene ii, and
Act II, scene i.
- Characters:
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