For Some Reason People Seem To Think That Mary Somehow Stumbled Into Writing A Commentary On Marriage/incest

as i was reading the 1818 annotated text of mary shelley’s frankenstein, i noticed that one of my favorite lines, “Clerval was a being formed in the very poetry of nature”, had an annotation by Shelley connecting it to The Story Of Rimini by Leigh Hunt.

i obviously checked it out, and found out that that line was describing PAOLO from dante’s inferno… as in paolo and francesca… THE star-crossed lovers… francesca was in an arranged marriage (familiar?) and sinned by falling in love with paolo… and theyre together in hell and regret nothing…

i’m actually weeping over this being a canon parallel. go stream francesca by hozier one billion times

i think i agree with some of what you're saying here, particularly the justine-trial thing and also victor's lack of foresight (ironic, then, that prometheus was the god of foresight), but i'll challenge you in regard to the "victor makes every wrong decision possible" bit: what was the RIGHT decision? realistically, given his knowledge of the situation (people tend to forget this is a story being told in retrospect and act like victor should have been omniscient...) and the hand that he was dealt, what could victor have possibly done that could have actually altered his outcome? personally i tend to veer towards the belief that after the animation of the creature, he could have done, well, Nothing, or at least very little (i'll elaborate on why i think so if you'd like, do let me know!)—narratively, victor's greatest, irreversible sin is the creation of the creature itself, and this is why frankenstein functions as a tragedy.

in regard to the creature though i'd have to disagree. the creature loves and appreciates humanity, he doesn't resent it! that's why he wants to be a part of it so badly, and keeps trying over and over despite the violence he's faced with! that's why he feels the sting of rejection so badly and reacts the way he does! and even after he becomes embittered after the delaceys, his request of victor to make him a mate is an inherently human one, meant to emulate the people and families and relationships that he's read about and observed!

not only that, he explicitly finds it UNnatural to commit acts of violence. when he hears of such acts while listening to felix teach safie, this is outlined clearly:

Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous, and magnificent, yet so vicious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil principle, and at another, as all that can be conceived of noble and godlike. To be a great and virtuous man appeared the highest honour that can befall a sensitive being; to be base and vicious, as many on record have been, appeared the lowest degradation, a condition more abject than that of the blind mole or harmless worm. For a long time I could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or even why there were laws and governments; but when I heard details of vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased, and I turned away with disgust and loathing.

and later, this is his reaction to reading plutarch's lives:

I read of men concerned in public affairs, governing or massacring their species. I felt the greatest ardour for virtue rise within me, and abhorrence for vice... I was of course led to admire peaceable lawgivers, Numa, Solon, and Lycurgus, in preference to Romulus and Theseus.

that is, he naturally appreciates virtue and looks towards pacifists as role models. and in general, i think it's wrong to say the creature's only been taught hatred and violence. even if he never experienced directly it himself, he understood and experienced, through lessons with safie and through his own readings, virtue, compassion, etc. from the outside. (arguably, his relationship with the delaceys was parasocial enough that at the very least he believed, and at one point, felt, that he had taken part in this sharing of virtue and compassion as well—he did not feel completely separated from it).

even after being stoned by the village people, being met with fear, rejection, violence, etc. the creature thinks this:

As yet I looked upon crime as a distant evil; benevolence and generosity were ever present before me, inciting within me a desire to become an actor in the busy scene where so many admirable qualities were called forth and displayed.

crime is still a "distant evil"; triumphed by the "benevolence and generosity" ever before him. there's no resentment of the world, no desire to reproduce the violence he's faced, not until his confrontation with the delaceys. it is this rejection, not victor's rejection, that is the creature's undoing. this is when he burns down their house, chooses to take revenge on victor, murders william, etc.

even then, his natural distaste for violence and appreciation for virtue is so strong, to the extent that he abhors himself for committing these same acts (go look at his interaction with walton at the end). and ultimately THAT is why i find the creature unforgivable, because it's shown time and time again violence is not this sort of knee-jerk reaction to him, and when he chooses to do the things he does, it's with a cultivated knowledge of right versus wrong, and not only that, a cultivated FEELING of right versus wrong. he actively goes against his own morals, detesting himself but refusing to stop all the while, for the sake of revenge. but i'll hop off my soap box...

a take on Frankenstein for some reason

There's far more nuance to both Victor and the creature than anyone tends to give either character credit for. The creature isn't evil but also not misunderstood, he's a hyper-intelligent child forced to find his own way in a world that time and time again violently rejects him. The fist time he visits a town they stone him on sight. Of course he resents humanity, and Victor's rejection of him is a final straw. He comes to his own naïve conclusions, and having been shown violence time and time again, finds it natural when something detestable comes before him. So when he finds a child baring his neglectful fathers name, the rage he feels compels him to murder.

That is objectively wrong yes, but you cannot expect anything less from the child who has only been taught hatred and violence.

The creature is like a dog that has been taught to bite without warning because it's never had any other choice. That makes it understandable, tragic but not entirely justified.

equally Victor isn't evil either, people get on his back for not speaking up during Justine's trail (tbf what was he supposed to say? "my big magic monster is the true culprit, no I have no proof of that or even that he exists, just trust me bro") (we even see how poorly that goes when he tells the Sherriff later on in the book), but I attribute that to the fact that Victor was an extremely haunted and prideful person who believed it was up to him to solve his mess (it kinda is but not he way he tries to) because "surely nobody else could!" He's also fairly stupid. Scientifically he's a genius, obviously. But he also makes almost every wrong decision possible and rarely considers the consequences of his actions (He also believes the creature is planning to kill him when it's so unbelievably obvious that he intends to kill Elizabeth). He decides to try and deal with the problem he's caused on his own, but fails so many times that he eventually dies and the creature solves the issue of his existence himself. Victor was more of a deadbeat, a narcissist and a moron than a villain.

Because Frankenstein is not a story with true villains, just bad people

Androgyny and individuation in Demian (Hesse, 1919)

Hesse's novel Demian explores the theme of androgyny and gender ambiguity in depth, using it as a symbol of overcoming the dichotomies that define the ordinary world. Androgyny in the characters is not just a physical or aesthetic characteristic, but represents the fusion of opposites, a condition in which male and female, good and evil, spirit and body coexist without conflict, and it is linked to Jung's theories on the psyche and individuation, the process of integration of the shadow, the dark part of the personality, and of the anima, the feminine principle in men. Emil must fight and create a new world beyond binary for himself.

(long post)

Individuation is a process by which one achieves individual wholeness, in the words of Jung “one who was supposed to be”. In this process, interpretation of dreams plays a dominant role, expressing the content of the unconscious, both personal and collective (this is explained by Jung in his Psychology and Alchemy). The individuation is not a linear process, but one with deviations and extremes , which place the individual in contradictory positions and often cause unbearable moral sufferings. Before birth, when the ego has not yet truly formed, the unconscious is one with the mother and its situation is associated by Jung with that of the Ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail. From birth, the ego begins its development and separates from the mother to look for another woman, a sexual partner that Jung makes correspond to the archetype of the anima. Hesse showed perfectly in Demian that the essential complication of this relationship is the fact that the archetype of the anima in male psychology, is always initially mixed with the image of the mother (1). Dreams are very important in Demian, more than physical events, they shape Emil's growth and desires. It’s in a “love dream” that emerges the figure of what Emil calls his destiny, which evolves from a portrait of a girl, Beatrice, yet it resembles a boy, Demian, angel and demon, human and beast, and it is described as Sinclair's truest soul. Still cis tho.

Steps of the individuation, which can be connected to specific episodes in the novel, includes: 

the assimilation of the shadow (“defeating” Kromer) 

the confrontation with the anima (portrait of Beatrice)

the encounter with the archetype of the Wise Old Man (friendship with Pistorius)

For young Sinclair, society presents itself with rigid boundaries, separating the male from the female, good from evil. His childhood is marked by a sharp division between the world of light and the world of darkness, his family corresponds to the bright world, where there is good, righteousness, prayer, etc. In the same way, men and women are two poles that intertwine only to do “mysterious grown-up” things. The father represents authority and rigidity, Sinclair’s relationship with him is not very peaceful and he  disregards his father as he grows up and has open conflict with authority such as teachers in school. Meanwhile, the mother is loving but passive, and his sisters, who embody the world of light and are seen as angels, distance themselves as they grow up, finding Emil both amusing and awkward in his teenager body. 

In the opening chapter, Sinclair expresses a longing to be part of the world of light, yet he feels unable to fully belong to it. He loses the light when he chooses the darkness. The education that Sinclair receives from his family does not provide him with the tools necessary to face the challenges of adolescence, and this pushes him to look for answers elsewhere. Sinclair’s conviction on the dichotomy of the world is challenged by the mere existence of Demian, who contradicts duality and embraces both light and dark, male and female, young and old. When Emil hears of Abraxas, the novel makes a stronger turn towards the idea of ​​a conjunction of opposites. This idea is very similar to the process of individuation described by Jung. 

“What about masculinity? Do you know how much femininity man lacks for completeness? Do you know how much masculinity a woman lacks for completeness? You seek the feminine in women and the masculine in men. And thus there are always only men and women. But where are people? You, man, should not seek the feminine in women, but seek and recognize it in yourself, as you possess it from the beginning.” (2)

Many spiritual traditions consider the androgynous as an expression of the divine. Throughout the Middle Ages, the myth of the androgynous being, seen as a model of human perfection, was present in the secret traditions of mysticism and theosophy in both the East and the West. In Islamic mysticism, divine presence often appears as an "angel-man" with an androgynous form. In Hafiz’s poetry, the beloved is not assigned a specific grammatical gender. Many translations struggle due to Hafiz’s distinctive figurative language and deliberate ambiguity (3). Hafiz’s lyrics on divine love can be reflected in the being of love dreams of Sinclair. 

The alchemical operation for the preparation of the philosopher's stone was the union between the masculine and feminine principles.Gnosticism places great importance on the myth of the androgynous being, viewing androgyny as an essential condition for human perfection—a return to a primordial, pre-formal state, free from attributes or polarizations. In particular, the Naassenes, a Gnostic sect, held that the celestial archetype, known as Adamas, was androgynous. Adam, the earthly man, was only a reflection of this divine archetype and was therefore also androgynous. Since all humans originate from Adam, the androgynous is believed to exist within each individual (4).

Most of the characters in Demian are portrayed with an androgynous or ambiguous quality, often blending traits of both youth and old age. 

Demian 

“I saw Demian’s face, I saw not only that he had not the face of a boy, but that of a man; I saw still more, I thought I saw, or felt, that it was not the face of a man either but something else besides. There seemed to be also something of the woman in his features, and particularly it seemed to me for a moment, not manly or boyish, nor old or young, but somehow or other a thousand years old, not to be measured by time, bearing the stamp of other epochs. Animals could look like that, or trees, or stones” (Demian, chapter 3 , english translation by N. H. Priday, 1923)

Since his first appearance, Sinclair himself is not sure how to describe with precision Demian, this boy surrounded by mystery and rumors, a being who seems to have already overcome the categories imposed by the ordinary world. Recalling animal and mythological images, Demian seems to come from an ancient era.

“Perhaps he was beautiful, perhaps he pleased me, perhaps even he was repugnant— I could not then determine.” (Demian, chapter 3)

These feelings of repulsion and reverence at same time happen again in the dream in chapter 2, where Sinclair suffers by the hand of Kromer and then because of Demian, this time welcoming the torture. However, beyond being merely a mentor or an object of desire, Demian also functions as a projection of Sinclair’s unconscious self, his true self. Then again in this dream in chapter 5: 

“Rapture and horror were mixed, the embrace was a sort of divine worship, and yet a crime as well. Too much of the memory of my mother, too much of the memory of Max Demian was contained in the form which embraced me. The embrace seemed repulsive to my sentiment of reverence, yet I felt happy. I often awoke out of this dream with a deep feeling of contentment, often with the fear of death and a tormenting conscience as if I were guilty of a terrible sin.”

Emil experiences deeply ambivalent feelings toward Demian, this time present in the Abraxas incarnation of his dreams, torn between an undeniable attraction and the weight of his upbringing, which has ingrained in him the notion of sin and guilt, very aware of what the terrible sin and crime is (gay gay gay homosexual), to the point of fearing for his life and giving him a reason to feel guilty about himself once more. His perception of his feelings as something forbidden, even criminal, is something present since chapter 1. His longing for Demian is expressed repeatedly throughout the novel, making the queer subtext not very subtle. 

Beatrice 

Sinclair is immediately attracted and devoted to her. He isn’t really interested in the real girl, he values only her image and what it represents to him. Also worth noting that he likes her in virtue of her boyish features and ephebic beauty. 

“She was tall and slender, elegantly dressed, and had a wise, boyish face. She pleased me at once, she belonged to the type that I loved, and she began to work upon my imagination. She was scarcely older than I, but she was more mature; she was elegant and possessed a good figure, already almost a woman, but with a touch of youthful exuberance in her features, which pleased me exceedingly.” (Demian, chapter 4)

Pistorius   

Pistorius is a character who also embodies a dual nature: he is both a mature man and a child, a mystic and an unfulfilled dreamer. Hesse uses the word "effeminate” to describe Pistorius' soft features, in contrast to the strength of the upper half of his face:

“....his face was just as I had expected it to be. It was ugly and somewhat uncouth, with the look of a seeker and of an eccentric, obstinate and strong-willed, with a soft and childish mouth. The expression of what was strong and manly lay in the eyes and forehead; on the lower half of the face sat a look of gentleness and immaturity, rather effeminate and showing a lack of self-mastery. The chin indicated a boyish indecision, as if in contradiction with the eyes and forehead. I liked the dark brown eyes, full of pride and hostility.” (Demian, chapter 5)

This description ties in with how Pistorius has an unfulfilled destiny and dream of being a leader of a new religion and how he is the prodigal son, both an adult and a child, still tied to his family and even more, the past and institutionalized religion.

Eva

The culmination of the concept of union of opposites is represented by the character of Eva, Demian's mother. She, almost worshipped as a goddess, is the leader of the circle of the elite, the individuals bearing Cain's mark, which Sinclair joins toward the end.

“There it was, the tall, almost masculine woman’s figure, resembling her son, with traits of motherliness, traits which denoted severity, and deep passion, beautiful and alluring, beautiful and unapproachable, demon and mother, destiny and mistress. [...] Her voice and her words were like those of her son, and yet quite different. Everything was more mature, warmer, more assured.” (Demian, chapter 7)

Demian is a feminine boy, and Eva is a masculine woman: mirrors of each other. In Eva, all opposites come together, not in conflict but in harmony. She represents the final stage of Sinclair’s journey, the embodiment of Abraxas. At the same time, she reflects both his idealized mother figure and his hidden desires. Sinclair’s love for Eva is not just about maternal affection. It is a continuation of his feelings for Demian, but now expressed in a new way that fits societal norms. Unlike his hesitant attraction to Demian, his feelings for Eva are open and intense, showing that she represents both acceptance and fulfillment of something he struggled with before. Her appearance and demeanor is very similar to her son, except she is a version of Demian that Emil is allowed to love, because she is a woman and not a man. In this sense, she serves as an outlet for the emotions he has repressed for years. It is difficult to separate the characters of Demian and Eva, because they, as I said, are a mirror of each other. Emil's feelings towards both of them are intertwined, nonetheless valid on their own. I think Emil loves both of them, but the fact that they are likely projections of Emil's mind complicates everything. 

Eva is the end of Sinclair's journey, when he first meets her he feels at home, she is what he was looking for. Demian's home— Eva’s home is a garden, a new Eden in which Sinclair can love and be loved for who he really is, in opposition to his family home. Her name, Eva, also carries symbolic weight, as it is the name of the first woman, who sinned against God and the mother of Cain and Abel, this all circles back to the first encounter with Demian and the mark of Cain. Her eternally youthful appearance reminds me of another very important mother figure, the Pietà Vaticana by Michelangelo. In the Pietà, Mary appears much younger than one might expect for a woman who has lost a 33-year-old son. 

“But just as Max in years past had made on no one the impression of being a mere boy, so his mother did not look like the mother of a grown-up son, so young and sweet was the breath of her face and hair, so smooth her golden skin, so blossoming her mouth.” (Demian, chapter 7)

Michelangelo’s focus was symbolic: he depicted Mary as young, as she was when she conceived Jesus, suggesting that "chastity, holiness, and incorruption preserve youth" (5). This iconography of the Pietà, or Vesperbild, became popular in Central Europe during the 14th century, with small sculptures showing the Virgin seated, holding the body of Christ after his death on Good Friday. During the Middle Ages, Mary was considered not only as the mother of Christ but also as his bride and as a symbol of the Church. In a similar way, Eva is not just Demian’s mother, (according to students rumors in chapter 3, her lover, too) but the mother of mankind, an idea and a spiritual figure. Eva, a woman that Sinclair calls mother, lover, whore and Abraxas. Demian also has some connotations of a Christ-like figure, he embodies the Self, the archetype of psychic totality, according to Jung. 

She’s tender, loving, but also scary and confusing: the hallucination/vision of the gigantic Eva on the battlefield causes destruction, the mother who brings birth also brings death, like the hindu goddess Kali, worshipped as the mother of the universe, associated with death and destruction. 

"Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.” (6)

 This hermetic principle of polarity, expressed in “The Kybalion”, perfectly encapsulates the gender of characters in Demian. 

(1) C. G. Jung. The archetypes and the collective unconscious. 1968. (2) C.G. Jung. The Red Book. 2009 (3) D. Ingenito. Tradurre Ḥāfeẓ: Quattro Divān Attuali. Oriente Moderno.2009. (4) https://www.rigenerazionevola.it/larchetipo-androgino/ (5) Giorgio Vasari. Le vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori. 1550-1567. (6) The Kybalion. 1908 by "Three Initiates" (William Walker Atkinson)

Imagine if you will, that you have an older brother.

He's an admirable kind of brother, the same as your parents. He has an interest in the natural sciences and is a bit of a nerd, but he's a great brother. Alongside your older brother, of course you have your parents, a younger brother (who is practically an angel to everyone who has ever known him), a cousin who is sort of your sister (and also your brother's one true love or whatever), your older brother's lifelong best friend, and a servant girl who is practically family.

Life is easy. You live everyday with great pleasure in your native home where the icy-capped mountains are beautiful and the lake serene.

Of course, like any other human being, you experience a great tragedy. One day, your cousin-sister gets sick. In her kindness, your mother takes care of her but gets sick herself and dies. It's tragic... but it happens.

Afterwards, your older brother leaves for university, and you spend your life full of enjoyment. The only thing you wish is that your father would allow you to take leave and become a soldier. Unlike your older brother, you had no fondness for the academia and would rather go out and find glory in battle.

In this time, your older brother's letters begin to slowly dwindle, that almost two years have gone by since his last writing. It bothers you, but as you are just a youth, it doesn't bother you as much as it does your father, your cousin-sister, and your older brother's best friend (who eventually does leave to go to the same university as your older brother).

From your brother's best friend, you're informed that your brother has gotten ill, but at least his best friend is there to care for him. Gradually, your brother begins to write to your family again and all seems well.

One day, you go out with your family to enjoy the nature. You and younger brother go out into the forest to play hide and seek. You seek, but do not find. You return to your family, hoping your brother went back but he didn't. You and your family try to find him for the entire night.

In the morning, you find him murdered.

A part of you blames yourself. After all, you were the last to see him. Maybe you even proposed that game of hide and seek. Maybe if you hadn't lost him he'd still be alive. Your older brother is told to come back home, and while waiting for him, you find out that your family's servant (who your family has loved like their own) was the murderer.

It's all so strange and horrible, but her trial is set, and your older brother has come home. He is visibly shaken when you first meet him after many years apart. He's changed, but he's still your brother. He raves a bit to you about how he knows who the murderer is, but instead of the servant, he mentions some other fiend.

This thought is quickly swept away by the ensuing trial and execution of someone you once held dearly. Your older brother is so distraught. He has decided to stay home, but his misery is palpable and you feel sorry for him, your father, your cousin-sister, and yourself. Although, you try your best to be happy.

Months past, your older brother has returned from a trip to some neighboring cities. Your father has been casually mentioning the possible marriage between your older brother and your cousin-sister. Instead of agreeing immediately, as you thought he would, your older brother instead decides to go to England with his best friend. Which is really strange to you, but hopefully he comes back better.

A year nearly passes... your older brother's best friend is dead and your brother has been accused of his murder. Your father has to travel all the way to Ireland to save him. Eventually they return, and your brother is a wreck - though that's to be expected after the murder of his best friend. Still, he decides to go on with the marriage - and there is happiness in your household once again.

Though somehow, your ever unlucky brother sails away with his new wife... and comes back stating that she has been murdered. The news literally kills your father, leaving you and your brother alone.

The next few months are torture as you watch your brother turn into a shell of himself, further falling into the miseries that you have both suffered. However, somehow a part of you can tell that there's something deeper in his despair, though you can't exactly know what.

Then you hear from a magistrate about your older brother's ravings about that fiend... the murderer he'd once mentioned a long time ago. The talks of a madman.

Your older brother leaves, promising to kill whoever enemy he had conjured up in his mind.

He's gone for months... maybe even years.

He comes back dead, though not alone. His body escorted by a ship captain.

He has a tale to tell you.

Oh, btw, your name is Ernest Frankenstein.

i was trying to find a specific post that i half-remembered at like 4am last night but out of context this is really funny

waltonstein <3

@lesamis’s tags

for some reason people seem to think that mary somehow stumbled into writing a commentary on marriage/incest accidentally, and that the themes of frankenstein are all about her trauma due to her experiences as a victim of the patriarchy, as a woman and a mother surrounded by men - as if she wasnt the child of radical liberals who publicly renounced marriage, as if she herself as well as percy shelley had similar politics on marriage, as if she would not go on to write a novel where the central theme is explicitly that of father/daughter incest years later…

the most obvious and frequent critique of victor i see is of his attempt to create life - the creature - without female presence. it’s taught in schools, wrote about by academics, talked about in fandom spaces - mary shelley was a feminist who wrote about feminism by making victor a misogynist. he’s misogynistic because he invented a method of procreation without involving women purely out of male entitlement and masculine arrogance and superiority, and shelley demonstrates the consequences of subverting women in the creation process/and by extension the patriarchy because this method fails terribly - his son in a monster, and victor is punished for his arrogance via the murder of his entire family; thus there is no place for procreation without the presence of women, right?

while this interpretation – though far from my favorite – is not without merit, i see it thrown around as The interpretation, which i feel does a great disservice to the other themes surrounding victor, the creature, the relationship between mother and child, parenthood, marriage, etc.

this argument also, ironically, tends to undermine the agency and power of frankenstein’s female characters, because it often relies on interpreting them as being solely passive, demure archetypes to establish their distinction from the 3 male narrators, who in contrast are performing violent and/or reprehensible actions while all the woman stay home (i.e., shelley paradoxically critiques the patriarchy by making all her female characters the reductive stereotypes that were enforced during her time period, so the flaws of our male narrators arise due to this social inequality).

in doing so it completely strips elizabeth (and caroline and justine to a lesser extent) of the power of the actions that she DID take — standing up in front of a corrupt court, speaking against the injustice of the system and attempting to fight against its verdict, lamenting the state of female social status that prevented her from visiting victor at ingolstadt, subverting traditional gender roles by offering victor an out to their arranged marriage as opposed to the other way around, taking part in determining ernest’s career and education in direct opposition to alphonse, etc. it also comes off as a very “i could fix him,” vibe, that is, it suggests if women were given equal social standing to men then elizabeth would have been able to rein victor in so to speak and prevent the events of the book from happening. which is a demeaning expectation/obligation in of itself and only reinforces the reductive passive, motherly archetypes that these same people are speaking against

it is also not very well supported: most of the argument rests on ignoring female character’s actual characterization and focusing one specific quote, often taken out of context (“a new species would bless me as its creator and source…no father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as i should deserve theirs”) which “proves” victor’s sense of male superiority, and on victors treatment/perception of elizabeth, primarily from a line of thinking he had at five years old, where he objectified her by thinking of her (or rather — being told so by caroline) as a gift to him. again, the morality of victor’s character is being determined by thoughts he had at five years old.

obviously this is not at all to say i think their relationship was a healthy one - i dont think victor and elizabeth’s marriage was ever intended to be perceived as good, but more importantly, writing their relationship this way was a deliberate critique of marriage culture.

okay I'm curious. if you feel like it, reblog this post with your top five all-time blorbos. not your latest blorbos, but the ones you've had the most persistent and irreversible brainrot about over the years

robert walton laid down in his bed and wrote every letter gushing about victor to margaret in this pose

say what you will about victor, but upon victor and the creature’s first real meeting, note that victor first sympathizes with the creature by discerning his feelings, before he makes any remark on his physical appearance: