Quote Analysis

Victor and Elizabeth depart by boat for their honeymoon at Evian, and Victor narrates that this journey contains his final experience of happiness.

Victor's narratorial aside—delivered in past tense from an unspecified future point—intrudes on the scene to announce its outcome before it happens. This flash-forward collapses the brief moment of peace into its imminent destruction, making it impossible for the reader to share in the happiness Victor claims to feel. The flatness of the phrasing ("the feeling of happiness") also drains the emotion of texture or detail, as if Victor is reporting a clinical fact rather than reliving a cherished memory.

Use this to argue that Victor's narration consistently undermines his own experiences—by announcing the end of his happiness before showing it, he refuses to grant the moment any reality independent of its tragic conclusion, revealing how thoroughly his retrospective perspective has consumed even his memories of joy.