they had called me mad
Just nine months before Elizabeth's death Victor, after the discovery of
Clerval's corpse, had fallen into a delirium lasting two months. (3.4.4). Even, after he had regained his
reason, his ranting convinced his father that he remained truly deranged
(3.5.2). The constant threading of
this issue through the novel must remind Mary Shelley's readers that they
are wholly at the mercy of this autobiographical narrative embedded in her
text, a narrative told by a man introduced as "generally having an
expression of wildness, even madness" to him (Letter 4.3). It is more than possible
that this is exactly her point, that Victor has been slowly descending
into a madness from which there is no escape, and that with his descent
the narrative becomes increasingly unreliable.
- Critical Approaches:
- Themes:
