Thames

The Thames River enters the narrative at a pivotal moment of transition, when Victor Frankenstein and Henry Clerval, having descended the Rhine from Strasbourg to Rotterdam, take ship for England and arrive on a clear morning in the latter days of December. The river presents a new scene to the two travelers: the banks are flat but fertile, and almost every town is marked by the remembrance of some story. As they sail up the Thames, they pass Tilbury Fort and recall the Spanish Armada, then Gravesend, Woolwich, and Greenwich — places Victor has heard of even in his native Geneva. At length they see the numerous steeples of London, with St. Paul's towering above all, and the Tower of London famed in English history. This arrival marks the end of the continental journey and the beginning of Victor's secret, loathsome task in England.

The Thames as a Threshold Between Scenic Travel and Grim Purpose

The Thames journey stands in stark contrast to the idyllic Rhine voyage that preceded it. On the Rhine, Victor had briefly tasted tranquillity, lying at the bottom of the boat and gazing at the cloudless blue sky, drinking in a peace long absent from his life. Clerval had been transported to fairy-land, exclaiming over the beauty of the river's banks, ruined castles, and vineyards. But the Thames offers no such rapture. The flat, fertile banks and the historical landmarks — Tilbury Fort, Gravesend, Woolwich, Greenwich — are noted with a detached, almost scholarly interest rather than with the emotional engagement Clerval had shown for the Rhine. The Thames brings Victor to London, where he will not seek the company of men of genius and talent as Clerval does, but will instead visit natural philosophers only for the information they can give him on the subject in which his interest is so terribly profound: the creation of a female companion for the monster.

The Thames and the Gothic Atmosphere of London

Once in London, Victor's experience of the city and its river is colored by the blight that has come over his existence. Company is irksome to him; when alone, he can fill his mind with the sights of heaven and earth, but busy, uninteresting, joyous faces bring back despair to his heart. He sees an insurmountable barrier placed between him and his fellow men, a barrier sealed with the blood of William and Justine. The Thames, which had been the avenue of arrival, becomes part of the landscape of his isolation. He begins to collect the materials necessary for his new creation, and this is to him like the torture of single drops of water continually falling on the head. Every thought devoted to it is an extreme anguish, every word spoken in allusion to it causes his lips to quiver and his heart to palpitate. The river, which had carried him to this place of torment, recedes from the narrative as Victor's inner landscape darkens, but its role as the conduit to his doom remains implicit.

The Thames as a Contrast to the Sublime Landscapes of Switzerland

The Thames, with its flat, fertile banks and its associations with human history and commerce, stands in marked contrast to the sublime, terrifying landscapes of Switzerland that dominate the novel's most intense scenes. Victor's encounters with the monster occur on the glacier of Montanvert, amid the sea of ice, and on the stormy heights of Mont Saleve. The Thames offers no such grandeur. It is a river of civilization, of towns and forts and steeples, of the Spanish Armada and English history. Yet it is precisely this civilized, historical landscape that becomes the setting for Victor's most abhorrent work. The contrast underscores the novel's central irony: the most terrible acts are not committed in wild, untamed places but in the heart of the civilized world, on rivers that have borne explorers and traders, past towns that mark the progress of human achievement. The Thames, in its quiet, unassuming way, becomes the river that carries Victor to his fate, just as the Rhine had carried him to a brief, deceptive peace.