Quote Analysis

Victor reflects on his inability to take pleasure in the journey's scenery, contrasting himself with Clerval's joyful engagement with the world.

The metaphor of a 'curse that shut up every avenue to enjoyment' spatializes Victor's psychology: pleasure is a place with multiple entrances, all now barred. 'Shut up' is violent and absolute—not 'closed' or 'blocked' but sealed off entirely. Yet Victor again uses passive construction (haunted by a curse) rather than naming his own actions as the source. The self-labeling as 'miserable wretch' is theatrical self-pity, the language of Gothic villains, which ironically makes him sound more like the 'fiend' he condemns.

Support a thesis that Victor adopts the language of cursed Gothic protagonists to avoid accountability—calling himself 'haunted by a curse' makes his misery sound externally imposed rather than self-created, allowing him to occupy the role of victim.