Frankenstein Chapters 21-24

Chapters 21-24

The magistrate summons witnesses that had the previous night discovered a not yet cold body on the very spot where Victor had landed on the present day. The dead body had no other marks on it except black finger marks around the neck, at the mention of the marks, Victor feels his despair deepen. Other fishermen tell the magistrate that they had sighted a skiff, not unlike the one Victor had sailed on, sailing away from the place where the body had been found the previous night. The magistrate wants to show Victor the body to observe his reaction, and so he takes him to the coffin.

In that coffin lies Victor's dead best friend, Henry Clerval, the sight of his cold body breaks Victor. He falls on his friend's corpse and laments his fate for he had yet again caused the murder of a dear soul, so overcome is Victor with his friend's death, that he falls deathly ill. He is taken to prison and administered by a nurse and physician. He remains in the same state for a couple of months, and upon recovery, the magistrate visits him.

The magistrate is accompanied by Victor's father, as the magistrate was now certain that Victor had not been the culprit of the murder but had been rather unfortunate. Victor's father informs him that everyone else in the house was well and that he had come to help Victor recover and overcome the criminal charge. The Magistrate helps organize Victor's defense in the court of law, and so he is soon exonerated.

Victor is determined to return to his home in Geneva so that he can shelter and protect his family from the evil machinations of the daemon.

Victor receives a letter from Elizabeth when he reaches Paris, she pleads with him to reveal if he loves another, mistakenly believing that his melancholy during his previous visit was due to the pre-arranged union with Elizabeth. The letter revives the memory of the words of the monster, who had promised to be with him on his wedding night. Victor writes back to Elizabeth and assures her that he has only ever loved her, but that he was plagued by the misery that he would reveal to her on the day following their marriage. They arrive in Geneva, and Elizabeth is extremely saddened by Victor's gaunt appearance.

Victor develops a hatred for the company of people and often has fits of insanity where he moves between debilitating rage and despondent moods of gloom. His only comfort is in the company of Elizabeth, and at his father's insistence, their date of marriage is fixed. It is also decided that the happy couple should spend the beginning days of their union on the shores of Lake Como, as Elizabeth had recently inherited a small property on its shores. The couple leaves for the lake after their day of marriage, and although they are happy at their union, both of them have a feeling of dread in their hearts.

Once they arrive at their destination, Victor prepares to face the monster as the sun goes down. He keeps close to him a pistol and roams the passageways searching for any place where the villain may hide. He sends his wife to bed, claiming that the night would be dreadful but all would be right come the sunrise. As he continues to inspect the passageways, he hears two dreadfully shrill screams from the room where Elizabeth had retired. He enters the room to find her lifeless body. Victor experiences excruciating pain, and sights the monster out of the window of the room, he attempts to shoot him with his pistol, but the monster moves with inhuman speed and dives into the lake.

Victor rushes home to Geneva where he finds both his father and brother alive, but his father is inflicted much pain at the news of Elizabeth's death, and he is not late in following her into that void. Victor losses himself in grief and only comes back to his senses some months later and discovers that he had been locked in a dungeon for he had been thought mad. After his madness has somewhat receded, his mind is occupied by but one goal, that of revenge.

He seeks out the magistrate and relates to him his whole tale of woe with precision. The magistrate is astounded by the facts, and when Victor demands justice, the magistrate expresses helplessness. He explains that by Victor's own accounts, the inhuman feats of the monster rendered him nearly impossible to catch and bring to justice. Victor was however resolved to seek out the monster and deliver revenge upon him.

Victor then quits Geneva in search of the daemon, but before he has resolved to leave, he wanders the environs of his city in hopes of catching some trace of the daemon. He finds his way turn towards the cemetery and so he visits the graves of his friends. There he declares his undying hatred for the monster that reduced his life to misery and swears to the shades of his friends that he will live only to seek revenge. This declaration is followed by a deep and terrible laugh, and from close by the Daemon bids Victor follow him and live. From that day onwards, Victor has tracked the daemon across the face of the earth to the north, sometimes the Daemon would leave him messages goading him on to continue the chase until finally Victor was stopped from his chase by the breaking of ice which caused him to be stranded on the ocean aboard an ever melting ice. He had sighted Robert Walton's ship and broken his sled to form oars to row towards it. At the end of the tale, Victor requests that if he should perish in his journey to kill the daemon, then Robert should carry that burden and strike the monster dead wherever he may across him.

Robert then ends the manuscript and continues to write his account in letters to his sister. He explains how Victor had become deathly ill, and their ship had become stranded in ice. The sailors had mutinied and told the captain that should the ice clear a passage, the ship should be conducted south and the voyage north must come to an end. Although Victor tries to enliven the sailors with a passionate speech, the ice clears a path south. The sailors demand a return home, and Victor's health worsens and he lies on his death bed. He asks to see Robert one last time and renews his request that Robert should kill the beast if ever he were to sight him, with that last action he closes his eyes and perishes.

Later that night, Robert hears wailing from the cabin where Victor's remains are kept, he enters the chamber to discover the hideous form of the monster. The wretch attempts to escape at first, but when Robert halts him and berates him for driving a man like Victor towards such a terrible death. The monster is despondent with the death of his creator, and for all the sins that he has committed to killing the innocent and the helpless. He believes that he abhors himself more than even what Victor had felt for him, and he tells Robert that he intends to go further north and create for himself a funeral pyre and bid the torturous world farewell, and with that last declaration, he jumps out of the ship onto his ice floe and travels northward.

Analysis

Victor repetitively experiences ill-health in reaction to the actions of the monster, if the reader were to trace the instances of these sicknesses, it can be determined that it is guilt that affects Victor so strongly. His reaction to the death of William, Justine, Henry, and even his father is accompanied by a terrible sickness.

The monster is unable to have his creator love him, and when Victor even refuses to create another creature with whom the monster can have kinship, he decides to reduce Victor's life to one resembling his own. He kills all those that Victor has any special connection, and renders him alone and riddled with self-hatred.

At the conclusion of the novel, all the narratives come to a halt as Walton relates the events that occur aboard the ship after Victor's demise. The reader is allowed an opportunity to glean from his words what he felt towards Victor, whom he describes as a noble and intelligent being that was ruined by the malicious monster. On the other hand, the monster perceives Victor as a heartless creator who could not find in himself love for his own creation, and he reasserts his own view of himself to contradict the one described in Victor's tale. His manner leads one to conclude that the monster sees himself as some tragic hero who now goes forth to end his life.