it modelled my feelings
Whether impelled by the verb "modelled" (1818) or "moulded" (1831), this
is a fascinating phrase. In the second case, although the revised edition
lacks the epigraph from Milton's
Paradise Lost that marks the original title page ("Did I request
thee, Maker, from my clay / To mould me Man?" -- X.743-44), Mary Shelley's recast
diction seems to recall it with a deliberate irony. In this
reconstitution the new Adam, lacking all free will, is animated by his own
revenge, which is the pattern, the "mould," established by Satan in
Milton's epic.
On a mundane rather than cosmic level, however, we might want to
contemplate what it is to have one's entire emotional life formed by the
sentiment of revenge? In accord with the loss of "voluntary thought"
mentioned in the previous sentence, Victor also gives up any feeling, any
instinctual sense of identification, that might lead him away from his
obsessive rage against his double. He thus confesses himself as being
wholly shaped, both intellectually and emotionally, by this bond of
negation. As he embarks on a pursuit of high adventure, he casts himself,
ironically, as a totally passive victim of his own choosing.
