Frankenstein Themes + Quotes

Justice

• Chapter 8

"Wretched mockery of justice"

"They were all black, and Justine had been condemned"

"He threatened and menaced until I almost began to think that I was the monster that he said I was"

Justine is found guilty for murdering William when really she's innocent, and Frankenstein knows he is partially guilty due to creating the monster. 

She also had a confession forced out of her by the priest, not very just at all.

• Chapter 21

"I called myself the murderer of William, of Justine, and of Clerval"

"His countenance expressed sympathy and compassion"

"I was liberated from prison"

Victor is found innocent for the murder of Clerval, however he feels he was really the one who murdered him due to creating the monster.

The person with him (Mr Kirwin) is the opposite of the priest before.

Rejection

• Chapter 5

"Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created"

"Wretch"

"Miserable monster"

Victor finally creates the monster and immediately rejects it due to it's appearance

• Chapters 11- 16

"The whole village was roused; some fled, some attacked me"

"Felix darted forward, and with supernatural force tore me from his father"

"When the man saw me draw near, he aimed a gun"

The monster was rejected by everyone he met, even by the one family he thought would help him.

He saved a little girl but was still shot by a man and this makes a reader feel sorry for him.

• Chapters 20 + 21

"It is the custom of the Irish to hate villains"

"The physician... and the old woman... but utter carelessness was visible in the first and the expression of brutality strongly marked in the visage of the second"

When Victor lands in Ireland, he is immediately rejected / judged by the locals for Clerval's murder.

The people "caring" for him in reality didn't care about his health.

Ambition

• Walton's Letters

"Yet do not suppose... I am wavering in my resolutions. Those are as fixed as fate"

"Those shores which I so ardently desire to obtain"

"But success shall crown my endeavours"

Walton is very ambitious, and is determined to get to the North Pole.

He won't give up on his dreams easily (yet has to near the end of the book.)

• Chapter 4

"I, who continually sought the attainment of one object of pursuit"

"But I doubted not that I should ultimately succeed"

"Until the great object, which swallowed up every habit of my nature, should be completed"

Victor spends all his time building the monster, and it turns into almost an obsession with it.

• Chapter 12 -15

"These thoughts exhilerated me, and led me to apply with fresh ardour to acquiring the art of language"

"She and I improved rapidly in the knowledge of language"

The monster wants to learn language to be able to speak to the De Laceys and hopefully become friends with them.

Nature

• Chapter 10

"They didn't remove my grief, they subdued and tranquilised it"

"The jutting rocks…