Frankenstein
Scene #3 · Chapter 5
On a dreary November night, Victor successfully animates his creature, watching its dull yellow eye open and its limbs convulse with life. Immediately horrified by the creature's grotesque appearance—yellow skin barely covering muscles and arteries, watery eyes, and shriveled complexion—Victor rushes from the room in disgust, unable to endure what he has created. He attempts to sleep but experiences a nightmare in which he embraces Elizabeth only to have her transform into his dead mother's corpse crawling with grave-worms. Upon waking, he finds the creature standing at his bedside with outstretched hand and muttering inarticulate sounds, causing Victor to flee downstairs and spend the rest of the night pacing the courtyard in terror, refusing to return to his apartment.
This moment marks the catastrophic culmination of Victor's ambition and reveals his fundamental failure as a creator—he abandons his creation at the moment of its birth solely because of its appearance. Victor's immediate rejection establishes the central tragedy of the novel and demonstrates how his obsessive pursuit of knowledge transforms instantly into horror when confronted with the reality of his achievement. The nightmare linking Elizabeth to death foreshadows the destruction the creature will bring to Victor's loved ones and suggests Victor's unconscious awareness that his transgression against nature will have deadly consequences.
I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.
Chapter 5 · Victor Frankenstein
By the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.
Chapter 5 · Victor Frankenstein
Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.
Chapter 5 · Victor Frankenstein
I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, I embraced her, but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms; a shroud enveloped her form, and I saw the grave-worms crawling in the folds of the flannel.
Chapter 5 · Victor Frankenstein
Oh! No mortal could support the horror of that countenance. A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch.
Chapter 5 · Victor Frankenstein