The creature

How the book draws them

Appearance, manner, and tone — as the book sketches them, in our words.

• Recognizing the cottagers’ hungerIn Volume II, Chapter IV, the creature realizes that taking the family’s food causes them pain. It stops stealing their provisions and gathers wood for them at night. Its sympathy becomes a change in conduct before they even know it exists.
• Reading itself into booksIn Volume II, Chapter VII, the creature studies Paradise Lost, Plutarch’s Lives and The Sorrows of Werter. It compares its situation with Adam’s and Satan’s, then reads Victor’s notes on its creation. Learning offers new ways to describe its isolation.
• Asking the blind father to listenIn Volume II, Chapter VII, it approaches De Lacy while the younger people are away. The old man responds kindly to its speech, but Felix attacks when he returns. The encounter separates a hearing based on words from a judgment prompted by appearance.
• Turning rejection into violenceIn Volume II, Chapter VIII, the creature admits killing William after learning his family name, then placing the portrait to incriminate a young woman. Its account makes the desire for revenge explicit. Earlier mistreatment does not erase its deliberate choices.
• Demanding a companionIn Volume II, Chapter IX, the creature argues that affection would make a harmless life possible and promises exile in South America. It also threatens Victor. It appeals to Victor’s duties as a creator while using threats to secure his agreement.
• Speaking after Victor’s deathIn the final Walton continuation, the creature mourns its creator and condemns its own murders while protesting the injustice done to it. It announces an intention to end its life, then disappears on an ice raft. Its death remains outside the witnessed ending.