Chapter II

WE WERE BROUGHT up together; there was not quite a year difference in our ages. I need not say that we were strangers to any species of disunion or dispute. Harmony was the soul of our companionship, and the diversity and contrast that subsisted in our characters drew us nearer together. Elizabeth was of a calmer and more concentrated disposition; but, with all my ardour, I was capable of a more intense application and was more deeply smitten with the thirst for knowledge. She busied herself with following the aerial creations of the poets; and in the majestic and wondrous scenes which surrounded our Swiss home—the sublime shapes of the mountains; the changes of the seasons; tempest and calm; the silence of winter, and the life and turbulence of our Alpine summers—she found ample scope for admiration and delight. While my companion contemplated with a serious and satisfied spirit the magnificent appearances of things, I delighted in investigating their causes. The world was to me a secret which I desired to divine. Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can remember.

On the birth of a second son, my junior by seven years, my parents gave up entirely their wandering life and fixed themselves in their native country. We possessed a house in Geneva, and a campagne on Belrive, the eastern shore of the lake, at the distance of rather more than a league from the city. We resided principally in the latter, and the lives of my parents were passed in considerable seclusion. It was my temper to avoid a crowd and to attach myself fervently to a few. I was indifferent, therefore, to my schoolfellows in general; but I united myself in the bonds of the closest friendship to one among them. Henry Clerval was the son of a merchant of Geneva. He was a boy of singular talent and fancy. He loved enterprise, hardship, and even danger, for its own sake. He was deeply read in books of chivalry and romance. He composed heroic songs, and began to write many a tale of enchantment and knightly adventure. He tried to make us act plays, and to enter into masquerades, in which the characters were drawn from the heroes of Roncesvalles, of the Round Table of King Arthur, and the chivalrous train who shed their blood to redeem the holy sepulchre from the hands of the infidels.

No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself. My parents were possessed by the very spirit of kindness and indulgence. We felt that they were not the tyrants to rule our lot according to their caprice, but the agents and creators of all the many delights which we enjoyed. When I mingled with other families, I distinctly discerned how peculiarly fortunate my lot was, and gratitude assisted the development of filial love.

My temper was sometimes violent, and my passions vehement; but by some law in my temperature they were turned not towards childish pursuits, but to an eager desire to learn, and not to learn all things indiscriminately. I confess that neither the structure of languages, nor the code of governments, nor the politics of various states possessed attractions for me. It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of things, or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or, in it highest sense, the physical secrets of the world.

Meanwhile Clerval occupied himself, so to speak, with the moral relations of things. The busy stage of life, the virtues of heroes, and the actions of men were his theme; and his hope and his dream was to become one among those whose names are recorded in story as the gallant and adventurous benefactors of our species. The saintly soul of Elizabeth shone like a shrine-dedicated lamp in our peaceful home. Her sympathy was ours; her smile, her soft voice, the sweet glance of her celestial eyes, were ever there to bless and animate us. She was the living spirit of love to soften and attract: I might have become sullen in my study, rough through the ardour of my nature, but that she was there to subdue me to a semblance of her own gentleness. And Clerval—could aught ill entrench on the noble spirit of Clerval?—yet he might not have been so perfectly humane, so thoughtful in his generosity,—so full of kindness and tenderness amidst his passion for adventurous exploit, had she not unfolded to him the real loveliness of beneficence, and made the doing good the end and aim of his soaring ambition.

I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of childhood, before misfortune had tainted my mind, and changed its bright visions of extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon self. Besides, in drawing the picture of my early days, I also record those events which led, by insensible steps, to my after tale of misery: for when I would account to myself for the birth of that passion, which afterwards ruled my destiny, I find it arise, like a mountain river, from ignoble and almost forgotten sources; but, swelling as it proceeded, it became the torrent which, in its course, has swept away all my hopes and joys.

Natural philosophy is the genius that has regulated my fate; I desire, therefore, in this narration, to state those facts which led to my predilection for that science. When I was thirteen years of age, we all went on a party of pleasure to the baths near Thonon: the inclemency of the weather obliged us to remain a day confined to the inn. In this house I chanced to find a volume of the works of Cornelius Agrippa. I opened it with apathy; the theory which he attempts to demonstrate, and the wonderful facts which he relates, soon changed this feeling into enthusiasm. A new light seemed to dawn upon my mind; and, bounding with joy, I communicated my discovery to my father. My father looked carelessly at the title page of my book, and said, “Ah! Cornelius Agrippa! My dear Victor, do not waste your time upon this; it is sad trash.”

If, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to explain to me that the principles of Agrippa had been entirely exploded, and that a modern system of science had been introduced, which possessed much greater powers than the ancient, because the powers of the latter were chimerical, while those of the former were real and practical; under such circumstances, I should certainly have thrown Agrippa aside, and have contented my imagination, warmed as it was, by returning with greater ardour to my former studies. It is even possible that the train of my ideas would never have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin. But the cursory glance my father had taken of my volume by no means assured me that he was acquainted with its contents; and I continued to read with the greatest avidity.

When I returned home, my first care was to procure the whole works of this author, and afterwards of Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus. I read and studied the wild fancies of these writers with delight; they appeared to me treasures known to few beside myself. I have described myself as always having been embued with a fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of nature. In spite of the intense labour and wonderful discoveries of modern philosophers, I always came from my studies discontented and unsatisfied. Sir Isaac Newton is said to have avowed that he felt like a child picking up shells beside the great and unexplored ocean of truth. Those of his successors in each branch of natural philosophy with whom I was acquainted appeared, even to my boy's apprehensions, as tyros engaged in the same pursuit.

The untaught peasant beheld the elements around him, and was acquainted with their practical uses. The most learned philosopher knew little more. He had partially unveiled the face of Nature, but her immortal lineaments were still a wonder and a mystery. He might dissect, anatomise, and give names; but, not to speak of a final cause, causes in their secondary and tertiary grades were utterly unknown to him. I had gazed upon the fortifications and impediments that seemed to keep human beings from entering the citadel of nature, and rashly and ignorantly I had repined.

But here were books, and here were men who had penetrated deeper and knew more. I took their word for all that they averred, and I became their disciple. It may appear strange that such should arise in the eighteenth century; but while I followed the routine of education in the schools of Geneva, I was, to a great degree, self taught with regard to my favourite studies. My father was not scientific, and I was left to struggle with a child's blindness, added to a student's thirst for knowledge. Under the guidance of my new preceptors, I entered with the greatest diligence into the search of the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life; but the latter soon obtained my undivided attention. Wealth was an inferior object; but what glory would attend the discovery, if I could banish disease from the human frame, and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death!

Nor were these my only visions. The raising of ghosts or devils was a promise liberally accorded by my favourite authors, the fulfillment of which I most eagerly sought; and if my incantations were always unsuccessful, I attributed the failure rather to my own inexperience and mistake than to a want of skill or fidelity in my instructors. And thus for a time I was occupied by exploded systems, mingling, like an unadept, a thousand contradictory theories, and floundering desperately in a very slough of multifarious knowledge, guided by an ardent imagination and childish reasoning, till an accident again changed the current of my ideas.

When I was about fifteen years old we had retired to our house near Belrive, when we witnessed a most violent and terrible thunderstorm. It advanced from behind the mountains of Jura; and the thunder burst at once with frightful loudness from various quarters of the heavens. I remained, while the storm lasted, watching its progress with curiosity and delight. As I stood at the door, on a sudden I beheld a stream of fire issue from an old and beautiful oak which stood about twenty yards from our house; and so soon as the dazzling light vanished, the oak had disappeared, and nothing remained but a blasted stump. When we visited it the next morning, we found the tree shattered in a singular manner. It was not splintered by the shock, but entirely reduced to thin ribands of wood. I never beheld anything so utterly destroyed.

Before this I was not unacquainted with the more obvious laws of electricity. On this occasion a man of great research in natural philosophy was with us, and, excited by this catastrophe, he entered on the explanation of a theory which he had formed on the subject of electricity and galvanism, which was at once new and astonishing to me. All that he said threw greatly into the shade Cornelius Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus, the lords of my imagination; but by some fatality the overthrow of these men disinclined me to pursue my accustomed studies. It seemed to me as if nothing would or could ever be known. All that had so long engaged my attention suddenly grew despicable. By one of those caprices of the mind which we are perhaps most subject to in early youth, I at once gave up my former occupations; set down natural history and all its progeny as a deformed and abortive creation; and entertained the greatest disdain for a would-be science, which could never even step within the threshold of real knowledge. In this mood of mind I betook myself to the mathematics, and the branches of study appertaining to that science, as being built upon secure foundations, and so worthy of my consideration.

Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by such slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity or ruin. When I look back, it seems to me as if this almost miraculous change of inclination and will was the immediate suggestion of the guardian angel of my life—the last effort made by the spirit of preservation to avert the storm that was even then hanging in the stars, and ready to envelope me. Her victory was announced by an unusual tranquillity and gladness of soul, which followed the relinquishing of my ancient and latterly tormenting studies. It was thus that I was to be taught to associate evil with their prosecution, happiness with their disregard.

It was a strong effort of the spirit of good; but it was ineffectual. Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction.

Footnotes

  1. The German scholar Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486–1535) was best known for his contributions to science and rhetoric through his work as a polymath, physician, theologian, and occult writer. Many of his works influenced later philosophers and writers such as Descartes and Goethe. Frankenstein’s father discounts Agrippa’s credibility, because many scholars, while acknowledging the impact of his works, considered his theories outdated or obsolete.

    — Wesley, Owl Eyes Editor
  2. Frankenstein describes his shift away from alchemy and mysticism towards mathematics and “secure” science as if a guardian angel was attempting to divert him from his ill-fated course. However, the chapter concludes with a more pessimistic message; that Frankenstein was always destined to follow a path of destruction, led by the dark forces of the occult and ‘natural philosophy.’

    — Emily, Owl Eyes Staff
  3. After witnessing lightning striking an oak tree and having the laws of electricity explained to him, Frankenstein immediately rejects the teachings of Agrippa, Paraclesus etc. in favor of the “secure” science of mathematics. This sudden change in belief demonstrates how Frankenstein is easily swayed from his own beliefs and thinking.

    — Emily, Owl Eyes Staff
  4. The Jura mountain range is located along the France-Switzerland border north of the Western Alps.

    — Emily, Owl Eyes Staff
  5. Preceptors means teachers or instructors, and in this case, it refers to the aforementioned philosophers whom Frankenstein read. The philosopher’s stone is a legendary substance that is said to turn any metal into gold or silver. It is also often called the elixir of life (although Shelley differentiates between them), which grants immortality to whoever possesses it. Frankenstein is fascinated by this second power; he claims to have no desire for wealth, but instead dreams of the glory he would obtain if he was to find a means for eternal life. Frankenstein’s fascination with this life-giving substance is the first major foreshadowing of his future creation.

    — Emily, Owl Eyes Staff
  6. Sir Issac Newton (1642–1726) was an English mathematician, physicist and astronomer that would have been known in Shelley’s time as a “natural philosopher.” Newton most famously formulated the theory of gravity. However, Newton also dabbled in alchemy and the occult and was said to be looking for the philosopher’s stone for over half his lifetime. Frankenstein’s reference to Newton as a child picking up shells is an allusion to Newton’s memoirs in which he states: “I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” Frankenstein compares his own frustrations to Newton’s in arguing that he has been unable thus far to make any major discoveries.

    — Emily, Owl Eyes Staff
  7. St. Albertus Magnus (1205-1278) was a German Dominican friar and Catholic bishop whose work ranged from the life sciences to philosophy to theology. He held the belief that religion and experimental science should be studied in tandem to discover the mysteries of nature and the universe. The influence of Agrippa, Paracelsus, and Magnus on Frankenstein is most apparent at this intersection between science and mysticism.

    — Emily, Owl Eyes Staff
  8. Greek philosopher Theophrastus von Hohenhein (1490-1451), referred to as Paracelsus, is often considered the father of modern medicine. His studies contributed greatly to the development of thought around disease and treatment. However, much like Agrippa, many scholars discounted him due to his interest in the mystical and occult, which he saw as complementary to scientific observation.

    — Emily, Owl Eyes Staff
  9. What Frankenstein calls “natural philosophy” we may today call natural science. It was the philosophical study of nature and the universe that was dominant before the proliferation of modern science. Today, natural science is separated into distinct fields such as biology and physics.

    — Emily, Owl Eyes Staff
  10. The adjective vehement is used to describe strong or intense feeling. By describing his passions as vehement, Frankenstein demonstrates that he was an intensely passionate child.

    — Emily, Owl Eyes Staff
  11. The adjective filial means ‘of a son or daughter.’ In this context, “filial love” refers to the love of a child for a parent.

    — Emily, Owl Eyes Staff
  12. The noun caprice means a sudden change of mood or behavior. Frankenstein uses the word to reject the idea of his parents as ‘tyrants,’ ruling their children according to a sudden whim or changing mood.

    — Emily, Owl Eyes Staff
  13. Henry Clerval was fascinated by historical tales of heroism. He drew inspiration from a number of historical sources. These included soldiers of the Battle of Roncesvalles who sacrificed themselves for the salvation of their comrades. The knights of King Arthur’s Round Table also demonstrated legendary bravery in battle. Lastly, the holy sepulchre refers to Jesus Christ’s burial site, of which the crusaders attempted to recover from the Turks. All three of these historical references in some way or another exalt bravery and courage over cowardice and excessive pride. Their inclusion here may be seen as an ironic foreshadowing of Frankenstein’s fate.

    — Emily, Owl Eyes Staff
  14. Belrive is an area on the shores of Lake Geneva. A campagne loosely translates into a country or summer house. Since French is the predominant language of Geneva, it makes sense that Frankenstein occasionally peppers his descriptions with French vocabulary.

    — Emily, Owl Eyes Staff
  15. Frankenstein states he has felt curious about the world’s mysteries since childhood. Notice how his description here mirrors the curiosity and thirst for adventure expressed by Walton in his first letter.

    — Emily, Owl Eyes Staff
  16. In aesthetic theory, the sublime is something which inspires great awe, wonder, or ecstasy, beyond the limits of human description. These feelings of awe and appreciation of aesthetic beauty are often mixed with a deep sense of terror. For many romantics, the most sublime object was nature itself, capable of inspiring great depth of feeling. Throughout her narrative, Shelley frequently links nature and the sublime, demonstrating nature as a beautiful and powerful entity through the encounters her characters have with their natural environments.

    — Emily, Owl Eyes Staff
  17. One of the definitions of “penetrate” is to see or show the way through something. It also implies a sense of violation or offense because “secrets” suggests that Nature does not condone Victor’s pursuit of understanding its elements and power. This choice of words foreshadow the consequences Victor will face for invading Nature’s “privacy.”

    — Jane, Owl Eyes Staff
  18. This is one of the rare moments in which we witness Victor perceive knowledge as “misfortune” or a negative element in his life. He enjoys reflecting on his childhood because he longs for the innocence he once had. “Tainted” suggests that gaining knowledge pollutes one’s mind, further emphasizing how obtaining knowledge can be bad and how one cannot unlearn what they’ve learned. This raises the question of whether knowledge acquisition is good or bad in the context of the Enlightenment.

    — Jane, Owl Eyes Staff
  19. Victor’s thirst for knowledge is not limited to the hows and whys of Nature on Earth. He has a strong desire to go beyond earthly knowledge and to comprehend the “secrets of heaven.” This choice of words suggests that Victor is pursuing what is beyond human knowledge and intelligibility. In addition, this implies that his pursuit is offensive and will continue to offend Nature as the story progresses.

    — Jane, Owl Eyes Staff
  20. In this passage, Shelley shows the differences between Elizabeth and Victor, and how such differences set the foundation of their relationship. While Elizabeth has a gentle spirit and strong admiration for Nature, Victor has an overwhelming passion for investigating Nature’s elements and causes. In this comparison, Elizabeth serves as an example of how humans should embrace and appreciate Nature, submitting to its powers and mysteries without questioning it. Shelley’s depiction of Elizabeth also emphasizes Victor’s desire to question and conquer Nature.

    — Jane, Owl Eyes Staff
  21. Victor’s natural inclination is to avoid crowds and only allow himself to be close to a few people. This is likely due to his upbringing in a loving and close-knit family and why he felt indifferent towards his schoolmates. Regardless, he eventually develops a camaraderie with Henry Clerval.

    — Jane, Owl Eyes Staff
  22. The “strong effort of the spirit of good” represents Nature’s final attempt to turn Victor away from the path of self-destruction. However, Victor’s stubborn and prideful character causes him to ignore Nature’s efforts, making them “ineffectual.” After creating the monster, Victor realizes that Destiny, with laws “immutable,” or never-changing, has “decreed” his “terrible destruction” for his crime of creation. Shelley personifies Destiny, giving it agency and authority, emphasizes its power.

    — Jane, Owl Eyes Staff
  23. Here, Victor describes his most memorable experience with electricity that will serve him well later in regards to both power and destruction.

    — Noelle Thompson
  24. Another element of foreshadowing here. Since religious incantations cannot reincarnate someone, Victor must turn to science and electricity.

    — Noelle Thompson
  25. Here readers can see that Victor surpasses "interest" and enters the realm of "obsession" regarding science and his search for knowledge.

    — Noelle Thompson
  26. Like Elizabeth, Henry serves as another foil to Victor:  he is always interested in literature instead of science.

    — Noelle Thompson
  27. Here we can see that Elizabeth and Victor are described as foils: one is loud, boisterous, and interested in science, and the other is quiet, graceful, and interested in poetry.

    — Noelle Thompson
  28. Victor and the adopted child, Elizabeth, are the only two children in the Frankenstein family until the birth of Victor’s little brother. Because Victor is seven years older than his youngest sibling, Victor is more interested in his school friends than his little brother. Victor specifically mentions his good friend Henry Clerval, who readers know is quite important to the story. Victor becomes enamored with science and develops a particular interest in electricity due to a violent storm that Victor witnesses when he is an early teen.

    — Noelle Thompson