The injustice of his sentence was very flagrant; all Paris was indignant; and it was judged that his religion and wealth rather than the crime alleged against him had been the cause of his condemnation.
Chapter 14 · The Creature
Context
The Creature recounts the story of the De Lacey family's downfall, explaining how Safie's father, a Turkish merchant, was arrested in Paris and condemned to death in a trial that many believed was motivated by religious and economic prejudice rather than actual wrongdoing.
Analysis
The formal diction—'flagrant,' 'indignant,' 'alleged'—mimics the language of legal documents and public outcry, giving the Creature's secondhand account an authority he borrows from others' judgments. Yet the passive construction 'it was judged' distances readers from who is doing the judging, quietly raising the question of how reliable collective opinion actually is. This echoes the novel's broader concern with how society reaches verdicts about outsiders based on surface traits rather than evidence.
Essay Tip
Support a thesis that Shelley uses embedded stories of injustice to prepare readers to question their own judgments—the Creature presents the Turk's trial as obviously unfair, positioning us to later recognize the same prejudice pattern when society condemns the Creature himself based on appearance.