Tower of London

The Tower of London is a historic fortress on the north bank of the Thames, one of the most famous landmarks of the British capital. In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, it appears briefly but significantly during Victor Frankenstein's journey to England with his friend Henry Clerval, marking the culmination of their voyage from Rotterdam and serving as a symbol of the settled, civilized world from which Victor's secret labors and guilt have permanently estranged him.

Appearance in the Narrative

The Tower of London is mentioned in a single, concentrated passage near the end of Victor's account of his journey to England. After sailing up the Thames and passing Tilbury Fort, Gravesend, Woolwich, and Greenwich—places whose names he knew from his native country—Victor and Clerval finally see the numerous steeples of London, with St. Paul's Cathedral towering above all, and the Tower of London, famed in English history. This moment of arrival is the only direct reference to the Tower in the novel, and it occurs at a point when Victor is already deeply burdened by the promise he has made to the monster to create a female companion.

Symbolic Significance

The Tower of London, as a site of imprisonment, execution, and royal power, resonates with the Gothic atmosphere that pervades the novel. Its mention alongside other historically charged locations—Tilbury Fort, associated with the Spanish Armada, and the Tower itself, with its long history of political prisoners and executions—creates a backdrop of weighty, often violent history against which Victor's personal tragedy unfolds. For Victor, however, this historical richness offers no comfort. He is unable to engage with the sights that would have delighted him in happier times; instead, he visits the natural philosophers of London only to obtain information for his loathsome task, and company becomes irksome to him. The Tower, like the city itself, represents a world of human achievement and continuity from which he feels permanently cut off by the blood of William and Justine, which he sees as an insurmountable barrier between himself and his fellow men.

Contrast with Clerval's Response

The Tower of London and the other historical landmarks of England elicit sharply different responses from Victor and his companion. Henry Clerval, whose spirit remains unbroken, is eager to experience everything the journey offers. He desires the intercourse of men of genius and talent, and the difference of manners he observes is to him an inexhaustible source of instruction and amusement. Victor, by contrast, sees the same sights through a veil of despair. The Tower, which might have inspired thoughts of England's storied past, instead only deepens his sense of isolation. Clerval's enthusiasm for the journey and his plans for an Indian enterprise stand in stark opposition to Victor's single-minded, tortured focus on the task ahead. The Tower thus becomes a marker of the gulf between the two friends: one still open to the world's possibilities, the other already a "blasted tree" whose soul has been struck by a bolt from which he will never recover.

Narrative Role

In the structure of Victor's narrative, the Tower of London functions as a geographical and psychological milestone. It marks the completion of the journey from Geneva to England, a journey undertaken under the pretense of travel and education but actually driven by the need to fulfill the monster's demand. The Tower's appearance signals that Victor has entered the heart of a foreign nation, far from the Alpine landscapes that have been the setting for his most traumatic encounters with his creation. Yet even in this new environment, he finds no escape. The Tower, with its connotations of confinement and punishment, foreshadows the imprisonment Victor will later endure in Ireland after Clerval's murder. It stands as a silent reminder that the civilized world, with all its history and order, offers no refuge to a man haunted by the consequences of his own ambition.