Frankenstein:  Collings Essay
Quote Incorporation Exercise

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.
 
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