Matlock

Matlock is a village in Derbyshire, England, that Victor Frankenstein and Henry Clerval visit during their tour of Britain in the spring of 1795. For Victor, the place is a site of painful memory and psychological disturbance: its scenery reminds him of Switzerland, and the very name of Chamounix, spoken by Henry, makes him tremble, hastening his departure. The visit marks a stage in Victor's journey toward the remote Orkney Islands, where he intends to complete his promise to the monster, and it deepens the contrast between Henry's lively appreciation of the landscape and Victor's haunted, guilt-ridden perception of the world.

Setting and the Journey to Matlock

Matlock appears in the narrative as one of the stopping points on the extended tour that Victor and Henry undertake after leaving London. They had arrived in England at the beginning of October, and by February they received a letter from a Scottish acquaintance inviting them to Perth. They resolved to travel not by the great road to Edinburgh but through Windsor, Oxford, Matlock, and the Cumberland lakes, planning to complete the tour by the end of July. Victor packed his chemical instruments and the materials he had collected, intending to finish his labors in some obscure corner of the northern highlands of Scotland. The journey thus carried him steadily northward, away from the familiar scenes of Geneva and toward the isolation he both dreaded and required for his task.

The Landscape and Its Resemblance to Switzerland

The country around Matlock struck Victor as resembling the scenery of Switzerland more closely than any other place he had seen in England. Yet everything was on a lower scale: the green hills lacked the crown of distant white Alps that always attended the piny mountains of his native country. This resemblance was not a comfort but a source of unease, for it reminded him of the sublime and terrible scenes he had left behind. The visit to the wondrous cave and the little cabinets of natural history, where curiosities were arranged in the same manner as in the collections at Servox and Chamounix, brought the association home with particular force. When Henry pronounced the name of Chamounix, Victor trembled and hastened to quit Matlock, for that name was tied to the glacier where he had confronted the monster and heard his demand for a female companion.

The Contrast Between Victor and Henry

Throughout the tour, Henry Clerval remained alive to every new scene, joyful at the beauties of the setting sun and happier still when it rose to recommence a new day. He pointed out the shifting colors of the landscape and the appearances of the sky, exclaiming, "This is what it is to live; how I enjoy existence!" Victor, by contrast, was occupied by gloomy thoughts and neither saw the descent of the evening star nor the golden sunrise reflected in the Rhine. At Matlock, this contrast sharpened: Henry's delight in the scenery and his expanding mind in the company of men of talent stood against Victor's sense of himself as a blasted tree, the bolt having entered his soul. Victor felt that he should survive only to exhibit what he would soon cease to be—a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others and intolerable to himself.

The Significance of the Visit

Matlock's importance in the narrative lies less in what happens there than in what it reveals about Victor's state of mind. The visit occurs at a moment when he has neglected his promise to the monster for some time and fears the effects of the daemon's disappointment. He torments himself with the thought that the fiend might remain in Switzerland and wreak vengeance on his relatives, and he waits for letters with feverish impatience. The name of Chamounix, spoken by Henry, brings back the memory of the glacier encounter and the terrible bargain, and Victor's trembling response shows how deeply the past still grips him. The place thus serves as a threshold on his journey: it is the last familiar echo of Switzerland before he moves into the barren isolation of the Orkneys, where he will begin the detested work of creating a female companion. Matlock also prefigures the pattern of the entire tour, in which Henry's innocent enjoyment of the world only magnifies Victor's isolation and despair, and in which every beautiful scene is poisoned by the memory of what Victor has done and what he has promised to do.