Felix

Felix is the son of the exiled Frenchman De Lacey, and his story, as recounted by the monster, forms the emotional core of the creature's education in human virtue and his subsequent despair. Felix's life is defined by a single, catastrophic act of heroic compassion: his attempt to rescue Safie's father, a Turkish merchant unjustly condemned to death in Paris. This act, born of a noble and impulsive sense of justice, destroys his family's fortune and condemns them to a life of poverty and exile, leaving Felix himself a figure of profound and lasting melancholy.

Identity and Background

Felix is the son of De Lacey, a once-affluent Frenchman of good family, and the brother of Agatha. Before their ruin, the family lived in Paris, respected and surrounded by friends, with Felix bred in the service of his country. The monster, observing the family from his hovel, learns that the youth is called "Felix," as well as "brother" and "son." Even to the monster's unpracticed senses, Felix appears to have suffered more deeply than his father or sister; his countenance is perpetually the saddest of the group, though his voice, especially when addressing the old man, is more cheerful than Agatha's.

The Rescue of the Turk and the Love of Safie

Felix's tragedy begins when he is present at the trial of a Turkish merchant, who is condemned to death on what all Paris recognizes as a flagrantly unjust sentence. Overcome with horror and indignation, Felix makes a solemn vow to deliver the prisoner. After fruitless attempts to gain admittance, he discovers a grated window lighting the Turk's dungeon and visits him at night, making known his intentions. The Turk, amazed, tries to kindle Felix's zeal with promises of wealth, which Felix rejects with contempt. However, when Felix sees the Turk's daughter, Safie, who is allowed to visit her father, and witnesses her gestures of lively gratitude, he cannot help acknowledging to himself that the captive possesses a treasure that would fully reward his toil and hazard. The Turk quickly perceives the impression Safie has made on Felix and secures him further by promising her hand in marriage once he is safe. Felix, too delicate to accept the offer outright, nevertheless looks forward to the event as the consummation of his happiness. During the preparations for the escape, Felix's zeal is warmed by letters from Safie, who, with the aid of a servant who understands French, expresses her thoughts in his language, thanking him ardently and gently deploring her own fate.

The Ruin of the De Laceys

Felix procures passports in the name of his father, sister, and himself, and his father aids the deceit by quitting their house under the pretense of a journey. Felix then conducts the fugitives through France to Lyons and across Mont Cenis to Leghorn, where the Turk decides to wait for an opportunity to reach Turkish dominions. Safie resolves to remain with her father until his departure, and the Turk renews his promise of her hand to Felix. During this time, Felix enjoys Safie's society; they converse through an interpreter and through looks, and she sings to him the divine airs of her native country. The Turk, however, secretly loathes the idea of his daughter marrying a Christian and plans to take her with him when he departs. His plans are facilitated by news from Paris: the French government, enraged at the escape, discovers Felix's plot. De Lacey and Agatha are thrown into prison. The news rouses Felix from his dream of pleasure; the thought of his blind, aged father and gentle sister in a noisome dungeon while he enjoys freedom and Safie's society is torture to him. He quickly arranges with the Turk that Safie should remain at a convent in Leghorn if a favorable escape opportunity arises before his return, then quits the Arabian and hastens to Paris, delivering himself up to the law in the hope of freeing his family. He does not succeed. They remain confined for five months before their trial, which results in the confiscation of their fortune and their perpetual exile from France. They find a miserable asylum in the cottage in Germany where the monster discovers them. Felix soon learns that the treacherous Turk, on discovering his deliverer's ruin, has quitted Italy with his daughter, insultingly sending Felix a pittance of money.

Life in Exile and the Arrival of Safie

When the monster first observes the De Laceys, Felix is the most miserable of the family. He could have endured poverty, glorying in it as the meed of his virtue, but the ingratitude of the Turk and the loss of Safie are irreparable misfortunes. The monster watches Felix carry out daily labors: he works for a neighboring farmer, clears snow from Agatha's path, draws water, and brings wood, perpetually astonished to find his store replenished by an invisible hand (the monster's own secret labor). He reads to his father and Agatha, and the monster, observing this, deduces that Felix is interpreting signs on paper for speech, and ardently longs to comprehend this science himself. The arrival of Safie at the cottage transforms Felix. When he sees her, every trait of sorrow vanishes from his face, replaced by ecstatic joy; his eyes sparkle, his cheek flushes, and he kisses her hand rapturously, calling her his "sweet Arabian." Her presence diffuses gladness through the cottage, dispelling sorrow as the sun dissipates morning mists. Felix is now happy, and he undertakes to teach Safie language, using Volney's Ruins of Empires as a text. Through these lessons, the monster gains a cursory knowledge of history, geography, and the systems of human society, including the division of property, rank, and noble blood.

The Rejection and Its Aftermath

When Felix, Safie, and Agatha return from a walk to find the monster in conversation with the blind De Lacey, their reaction is one of unmitigated horror. Agatha faints, Safie rushes out, and Felix, with supernatural force, tears the monster from his father's knees, dashes him to the ground, and strikes him violently with a stick. The monster, though capable of tearing Felix limb from limb, refrains, overcome by pain and anguish, and escapes to his hovel. The next day, Felix, trembling violently, tells a companion that they can never again inhabit the cottage, that his father's life is in danger, and that his wife and sister will never recover from their horror. He and his family depart, and the monster never sees any of them again. The monster later reflects on this injustice, asking why Walton does not hate Felix, who drove his friend from his door with contumely. Felix's rejection is the pivotal event that extinguishes the monster's last hope of human companionship and confirms his turn toward vengeance. The monster's later education in the "sanguinary laws of man" is explicitly credited to the lessons of Felix, whose own story of love, sacrifice, and betrayal becomes a bitter template for the creature's understanding of a world that will always reject him.