Frankenstein Key Quotations

Question 1

Walton on what he deserves

Answer 1

“do I not deserve to accomplish some great purpose?”

Question 2

Walton’s search for glory

Answer 2

“my life might have been passed in ease and luxury; but I preferred glory”

Question 3

Walton on man’s abilities

Answer 3

“what can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man”

Question 4

Walton’s prejudice

Answer 4

“He was not, as other traveller seemed to be, a savage inhabitant of some undiscovered island, but an European”

Question 5

Walton on Victor’s appearance

Answer 5

“his body dreadfully emaciated by fatigue and suffering”

Question 6

Walton’s willingness to sacrifice himself for his purpose

Answer 6

“how gladly I would sacrifice my fortune, my existence, my every hope, to the furtherance of my enterprise. One man’s life or death were but a small price to pay”

Question 7

Victor on the drink of desire of glory

Answer 7

“Have you drank also of the intoxicating draught? Hear me - let me reveal my tale, and you will dash the cup from your lips!”

Question 8

Victor on his mother’s mind and her work

Answer 8

“Caroline Beaufort possessed a mind of an uncommon mould… she procured plain work”

Question 9

Caroline’s mind

Answer 9

“soft and benevolent mind”

Question 10

Victor on his parents’ view of him

Answer 10

“I was their plaything and their idol… their child, the innocent creature bestowed upon them by Heaven… they fulfilled their duties towards me”

Question 11

Victor on Elizabeth (ew)

Answer 11

“my more than sister” “till death she was to be mine only”

Question 12

Caroline’s present for Victor

Answer 12

“I have a pretty present for my Victor- tomorrow he shall have it”

Question 13

v: secrets

Answer 13

“It was the secrets of heaven and earth which I desired to learn”

Question 14

Victor elizabeth lamp

Answer 14

“the saintly soul of Elizabeth shone like a shrine-dedicated lamp in our peaceful home”

Question 15

banishing diseases victor

Answer 15

“if I could banish disease from the human frame, and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death”

Question 16

caroline on v and e’s marriage

Answer 16

“my firmest hopes of future happiness were placed on the prospect of your union”

Question 17

elizabeth forgets her sadness for others

Answer 17

“she forgot even her own regret in her endeavours to make us forget”

Question 18

victor on knowledge

Answer 18

“I ardently desired the acquisition of knowledge”

Question 19

waldman on modern scientists

Answer 19

“they penetrate into the recesses of nature… they ascend into the heavens… they have acquired new and almost unlimited powers”

Question 20

victor’s hubris over modern scientists

Answer 20

“more, far more, will I achieve”

Question 21

victor on the day waldman talked about science

Answer 21

“thus ended a day memorable to me: it decided my future destiny”

Question 22

victor: life principle debate

Answer 22

“whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed?”

Question 23

victor on life and death and their link

Answer 23

“to examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death”

Question 24

victor’s great discovery 1(first spark)

Answer 24

“examining… the change from life to death, and death to life, until… a sudden light broke in upon me”

Question 25

victor’s great discovery 2 (superiority)

Answer 25

“I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret”

Question 26

victor’s great discovery 3 (ability)

Answer 26

“I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter”

Question 27

victor’s great discovery 4 (wiser than wise men)

Answer 27

“what had been the study and desire of the wisest men since the creation of the world was now within my grasp”

Question 28

victor’s warning to walton

Answer 28

“learn from me… how dangerous is the acquisiton of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world”

Question 29

victor’s plan for the creature

Answer 29

“I resolved… to make the being of gigantic stature”

Question 30

the liminality of life and death

Answer 30

“life and death seemed to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world”

Question 31

victor’s new species’s reaction

Answer 31

“a new species would bless me as its creator”

Question 32

chasing nature

Answer 32

“I pursued nature to her hiding places”

Question 33

victor casually grave robbing

Answer 33

“I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave”

Question 34

promethean parallel victor torturing things

Answer 34

“tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay”

Question 35

perfect human acc. viccy boy

Answer 35

“a human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind, and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquility”

Question 36

the creature wakes + george forster

Answer 36

“I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs”

Question 37

victor on his newborn son

Answer 37

“wretch… miserable monster… demonaical corpse”

Question 38

what clerval does to victor

Answer 38

“restored me to life”

Question 39

victor gets attacked (not really and) (metaphorically)

Answer 39

“I was attacked by the fatal passion”

Question 40

Victor beauty of a storm

Answer 40

“I watched the tempest , so beautiful yet terrific”

Question 41

Victor realises the murderer

Answer 41

“Nothing in human shape could have destroyed that fair child. He was the murderer”

Question 42

Victors arrogance/ Williams murderer

Answer 42

“The mere presence of the idea was irresistible proof of the fact”

Question 43

Victor the creature the same

Answer 43

“My own spirit let loose from the grave”

Question 44

Victor in Justines trial

Answer 44

“My own agitation and anguish was extreme during the whole trial”

Question 45

Victors pain is worse than Justines

Answer 45

“The tortures of the accused did not equal mine”

Question 46

The creature asks Victor a question

Answer 46

“How dare you sport thus with life?”

Question 47

The creature asks Victor a request

Answer 47

“I entreat you to hear me”

Question 48

Paradise lost reference

Answer 48

“I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel”

Question 49

KQ on tabula rasa creature was once god

Answer 49

“I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend”

Question 50

Victor finally thinks he might have some duty towards the creature

Answer 50

“For the first time, also, I felt what the duties of a creator towards his creature were”