Read over the following paragraph. Select two quotes from the "The
Monster and the Maternal Thing" (F 280-95) and place them in the
paragraph where they would best support the claims being made. Be
prepared to explain the reasons behind the choices you make.
One of the most important episodes in Frankenstein occurs
shortly after the completion of the monster. On the night of his
success, Victor has a particularly vivid dream, in which he sees Elizabeth
walking in the streets and embraces her. However, he recalls, “as I imprinted
the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hues of death; her
features appeared to change, and I thought I held the corpse of my dead
mother in my arms; a shroud enveloped her form, and I saw the grave worms
crawling in the folds of her flannel” (Shelley 61). Clearly, this
dream demonstrates that Victor has some unresolved issues with his mother.
Perhaps her death, occurring immediately before his departure, has caused
him to identify all of his work at Ingolstadt with her loss. Now that he
has succeeded in bringing to life a creature made out of dead body parts,
he is able recognize the connections between the activities in which he
has been engaged and the duties that his mother has performed for his family
earlier in the novel. Also significant is the association between
Elizabeth and Caroline Frankenstein, a connection made by Caroline herself
on her death bed, when she tells Elizabeth, “Elizabeth, my love, you must
supply my place to my younger children” (49). This association with
his dead mother, future wife, and created child would certainly be sufficient
to elicit a negative response.