Mont Blanc
Mont Blanc, the supreme and magnificent mountain, towers over the valley of Chamounix and serves as the sublime setting for the pivotal confrontation between Victor Frankenstein and the monster he created. It is within sight of this colossal peak, on the glacier of Montanvert, that the two antagonists meet for the first time since the creature's animation, and where the monster narrates his own history and extracts a fateful promise from his creator. The mountain's overwhelming scale and eternal, indifferent beauty frame a scene that transforms the novel's central conflict from one of flight and pursuit into a fraught negotiation with catastrophic consequences.
The Sublime Setting and Victor's Descent
Victor, in the depths of despair following the deaths of William and Justine, seeks relief from his intolerable sensations by journeying into the Alpine valleys. He arrives at the village of Chamounix, where the immense mountains and precipices, the sound of the river Arve raging among the rocks, and the dashing of waterfalls speak of a power mighty as Omnipotence. He ascends to the glacier of Montanvert, a scene terrifically desolate, where the icy wall of the glacier overhangs him and the solemn silence of this glorious presence-chamber of imperial nature is broken only by the thunder sound of the avalanche. These sublime and magnificent scenes afford him the greatest consolation he is capable of receiving, elevating him from all littleness of feeling and subduing his grief. He sits upon a rock overlooking the sea of ice, and as a breeze dissipates the cloud, he descends upon the glacier, its surface uneven, rising like the waves of a troubled sea. From this vantage point, Mont Blanc rises in awful majesty, and Victor's heart, which was before sorrowful, swells with something like joy as he exclaims to wandering spirits.
The Confrontation on the Glacier
As Victor speaks, he suddenly beholds the figure of a man advancing towards him with superhuman speed, bounding over the crevices in the ice where Victor had walked with caution. He perceives that it is the wretch he created, and trembling with rage and horror, he resolves to wait his approach and close with him in mortal combat. The monster's countenance bespeaks bitter anguish combined with disdain and malignity, its unearthly ugliness almost too horrible for human eyes. Victor overwhelms him with words of furious detestation and contempt, calling him a devil and a vile insect, and threatening to trample him to dust. The monster, however, easily eludes Victor's attack and entreats him to be calm and listen to his tale, reminding Victor that he is his creature, and that he ought to be his Adam but is rather the fallen angel driven from joy for no misdeed. He claims he was benevolent and good, but misery made him a fiend, and he asks Victor to make him happy so that he may again be virtuous. Victor, partly urged by curiosity and compassion, and feeling for the first time the duties of a creator towards his creature, consents to listen. The monster leads the way across the ice to a hut upon the mountain, where, by a fire he has lighted, he begins his long and strange tale.
The Pact and Its Consequences
The monster's narrative, which occupies the entire day, culminates in a demand: Victor must create a female companion for him, of the same species and with the same defects, with whom he can live in the interchange of sympathies necessary for his being. Victor initially refuses, but the monster argues that he is malicious because he is miserable, and that if Victor grants his request, he will quit the neighbourhood of man forever and lead a harmless life. After a long pause of reflection, Victor concludes that justice due both to the monster and to his fellow creatures demands that he comply. He consents, on the monster's solemn oath to quit Europe forever. The monster swears by the sun, the blue sky of heaven, and the fire of love that burns his heart, and then departs with greater speed than the flight of an eagle, quickly lost among the undulations of the sea of ice. Victor, left alone as the sun is upon the verge of the horizon, weeps bitterly and feels the weight of the stars and the wind as if they mock him. He returns to Geneva, resolved to dedicate himself to the most abhorred task of creating a female monster, a decision that sets in motion the final, tragic acts of the novel.
