One of the most important scenes in the story was when Frankenstein changed his mind and decided to “never to resume [his] labours” in creating a female mate for the monster. In breaking his promise, he directly defied the monster and knew that the creature will seek revenge and retribution in some form. Throughout Chapter 20, I found myself captured by the strong sense of comparison between the emotions of the two beings and the weather.
As soon as Frankenstein made his choice, an eerie calm descended upon his neighborhood. “It was almost motionless, for the winds were hushed.” The sounds on the water were few, as silence consumed the night. This quiet environment reminded me of the calm before a storm. There was a tension caused by a threatening storm, as if everyone was holding their breath for the first drop of rain.
During the verbal confrontation between the doctor and his creation, the emotions rose in a flurry of activity. As soon as the daemon left, I noticed Shelley using unexpected diction with the words “precipitation” and “precipitate” in two close-by sentences. The first time I read the phrase “[he] quitted the house with precipitation,” I thought it was referring to rain. Then, the writer quickly used a different form of the word in the phrase “precipitate him into the ocean” to show the speed of his rage. In both instances, I received a strong image of a storm with the descriptions of emotions using words that also can be weather-related. Even, the phrase “he had directed his course towards the mainland” brought a hurricane to my thoughts.
Of course, a greater physical squall was on the horizon later in the chapter when Frankenstein set out in his skiff to dump his “chemical instruments” into the ocean. As soon as he disposed the remnants of his work, the sky was filled with clouds and his entire world blown apart. The tempest of his life was reflected in this storm that blows his boat off course.
