What do you mean? What do you demand of your captain? Are you, then, so easily turned from your design? Did you not call this a glorious expedition?
Letters, Walton, _in continuation._ · Victor Frankenstein
Context
When Walton's crew demands he turn the ship around if the ice breaks, the dying Victor rouses himself and challenges the sailors with a series of accusatory questions.
Analysis
The rapid-fire questions—four in two sentences—don't invite answers; they're designed to shame. The repetition of 'What do you' and the shift from statement to interrogation turn the sailors' reasonable request into something that sounds cowardly when framed by Victor's rhetoric, showing how persuasive language can redefine self-preservation as betrayal.
Essay Tip
Use this to argue that Victor's eloquence is manipulative rather than wise—he reframes the crew's survival instinct as moral failure, revealing how charismatic speech can be a tool of coercion rather than truth.