Murder of Henry Clerval
The murder of Henry Clerval is the most devastating blow Victor Frankenstein suffers before the death of his bride, a calculated act of vengeance that transforms the monster's abstract threat into a concrete, irreparable loss. Clerval, Victor's childhood friend and the embodiment of gentle, imaginative humanity, is strangled on the coast of Ireland, his body discovered with the black mark of fingers on his neck—a signature identical to the murder of William Frankenstein. The event shatters Victor's remaining hold on sanity, plunges him into a months-long fever, and crystallizes the monster's strategy of destroying everyone Victor loves before claiming his final victim.
Discovery and Circumstances
The body of Henry Clerval was found on the night of Victor's arrival in an Irish town, after he had fled his solitary island laboratory in the Orkneys. Fishermen, including Daniel Nugent and his companions, discovered the corpse on the sands near a creek about two miles below the harbour. The body was that of a handsome young man of about five and twenty, apparently strangled, with no other violence except the black mark of fingers on his neck. The clothes were not wet, and the body was not yet cold, indicating the murder had occurred very recently. Witnesses reported seeing a boat with a single man in it near the shore at the time, and the same boat in which Victor had just landed was identified, leading to Victor's immediate arrest on suspicion of murder.
Victor's Reaction and Imprisonment
When Victor was brought before the magistrate, Mr. Kirwin, and led to view the corpse, he recognized Henry Clerval and collapsed in convulsions, crying out, "Have my murderous machinations deprived you also, my dearest Henry, of life? Two I have already destroyed; other victims await their destiny; but you, Clerval, my friend, my benefactor—" He was carried out in strong convulsions and lay for two months on the point of death, raving that he was the murderer of William, Justine, and Clerval. His ravings were so frightful that Mr. Kirwin, who alone understood his native language, was horrified, and the other witnesses were terrified by his gestures and bitter cries. Victor later reflected that he had been doomed to live, and that the cup of life was poisoned forever; he saw around him nothing but a dense and frightful darkness, penetrated only by the glimmer of two eyes—sometimes the expressive eyes of Henry languishing in death, sometimes the watery, clouded eyes of the monster.
The Monster's Motive and the Wedding-Night Threat
The murder of Clerval was the monster's direct response to Victor's destruction of the female creature. After Victor tore to pieces the half-finished companion on his Orkney island, the monster appeared and declared, "I will be with you on your wedding-night." Victor understood this as a threat against his own life, but the monster's true intention was to make Victor suffer the loss of everyone he loved before killing him. As Victor later realized, the monster had murdered Clerval immediately after the enunciation of his threats, to show that he was not yet satiated with blood. The monster himself later confessed to Walton that after the murder of Clerval he returned to Switzerland heart-broken and overcome, and that the groans of Clerval were not music to his ears—his heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy, and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture.
Consequences and Aftermath
Victor was imprisoned for three months in Ireland, during which his father, Alphonse Frankenstein, traveled to be with him. The grand jury rejected the bill against Victor when it was proved that he was on the Orkney Islands at the hour the body was found, and he was liberated. But the psychological damage was permanent. Victor became a mere skeleton, preyed upon by fever night and day, and was absorbed by a gloomy and black melancholy that nothing could dissipate. The image of Clerval was forever before him, ghastly and murdered. Victor's father tried to awaken feelings of affection, speaking of Geneva, Elizabeth, and Ernest, but these words only drew deep groans from him. The murder of Clerval, following the deaths of William and Justine, completed the monster's campaign of vengeance and left Victor with only one remaining purpose: to pursue and destroy his creation, a quest that would consume the remainder of his life and lead him to the frozen north, where he would finally meet his own end.
