Victor then goes on to state how something that could be so good, something he would have been famous for, something he deprived himself for has turned out to be a hideous nightmare. The way he describes the fact that he spent two whole years of his life committed to the creation of the monster and he gets nothing but a ‘wretch’ from it makes the reader feel extreme sympathy for Victor and almost angers the reader at the monster for not being of Victors expectations. As Victor flees from his creature to his bedchambers, he takes the first step in denying the monster of a proper life and friendship.
Victor should have embraced the monster or at least stayed in its sights so the monster could feel protected. The way Victor abandons the creature immediately after birth is disturbing to the reader. Shelley had also been left by her mother, although unintentionally, at a very early age and perhaps this is how she feels about not having her true mother stranding over her. Victor is cowardice in this chapter as he runs away from the monster at the first sign of danger and keeps himself in his bedroom. The reader shows feelings of disgust for Victor has he is weak and cannot control his emotions furthermore destroying the creature’s future.
The reader starts to sympathise with the monster as he is left as soon as his creator or father sees his strange features. As Victor is in his bedchambers, he falls asleep due to the ‘lassitude’ he felt. Victor had a restless sleep and horrific dreams. He dreamt that he was reunited with Elizabeth but the dream got horrifically disturbing as Elizabeth turned into Caroline Frankenstein’s corpse. This dream represents the future of Victor now that the monster is created. The dream shows us that Victor has been thinking about his family and maybe now he was thinking about the consequences of his actions.
This gives the reader the impression that Victor will lose everyone he loves when they could have been saved if he did not create the monster. This is an archetypal gothic horror convention as it mixes love with horror: ’embracing Elizabeth’ and ‘corpse of my dead mother’. The way that the monster is hovering over Victor only confirms the fact that the monster will cause misery in Victor’s life. Although the way the monster is grinning at Victor is quite amusing as the reader imagines a monstrous newborn baby smiling and ‘muttering’ at his father.
