• Monster understands the importance of family the more he is isolated
• Cottagers’ devotion to each other reminds Monster of
Victor’s abandonment
• So, their kindness actually causes the monster to suffer.
• Both his solitude and his namelessness compound his lack of identity.
• Monster has a childlike reaction to springtime = the sublime
• With the greenery, he is able to forget his own ugliness and unnaturalness = healing

• Monster sees knowledge as dangerous because it can have negative consequences.
• Knowledge is permanent and irreversible.
• Monster = a product of knowledge, spins out of Victor’s control
• Narrative at this point = perspective transitions from
Victor to the monster.
• Both narrators = emotional, sensitive, aware of nature’s power, and concerned with the dangers of knowledge
• Both = express themselves elegantly, Romantically, melodramatically.
• Layered narrative = Monster speaks through Victor,
Victor speaks through Walton, and Walton ultimately speaks through Romantic Shelley.

• Subplot = Safie and the cottagers = adds yet another layer of narrative to the novel.
• Monster = Ultimate Outsider = deformity, ability to survive extreme conditions, and grotesque
• Victor = outsider = awful secret separates him from friends, family, and society.
• Cottagers = Outsiders =
– Father = Muslim Turk in Paris = a threat to his life from the prejudiced and figures in power.
– Safie = feelings of being oppressed by Islam’s confining gender roles = she seeks escape to the more egalitarian ideas of
Christianity.

• Monster = fascinated with the relationship of Felix and
Safie = his desire for Victor to accept him.
• BUT – Felix bravely helps Safie’s father escape vs.
Victor’s unwillingness to save Justine
• AND - Felix’s compassion for Safie contrasts Victor’s cold hatred for the monster.
• Language and communication = center stage in these chapters
– Monster begins to understand and produce written and spoken language.
– BUT he cannot communicate with others; he is only a voyeur
• His language comes in handy finally when he encounters
Victor on the glacier.

• Monster discovers various texts including Paradise Lost.
– introduces him to Adam and Satan = he compares himself to them.
• offers to show copies of Safie’s letters to validate his plight and gain Victor’s sympathy.
• he falsely assumes that Paradise Lost is historically accurate and he hopes that his story can win Victor over.
• Motif = passive woman, a gentle creature who submits to the demands of the active, powerful men around her.
– Safie boldly rejects her father’s attempt to return her to the constraints and limitations of life in
Constantinople = makes her one of the strongest characters in the novel, despite her minor role.
• Safie = outsider but she manages to gain acceptance.