Quote Analysis

Standing in the storm near the place where William was killed, Victor addresses his dead brother, declaring that the tempest itself serves as William's funeral ceremony.

Victor's apostrophe replaces an actual funeral with a private, theatrical moment in which he conscripts the storm into serving his emotional needs. The elevated diction ("thy funeral, thy dirge") borrows the grammar of prayer or elegy, but the possessive "thy" also claims the storm as belonging to William, as if nature exists to perform Victor's grief rather than simply occurring indifferent to it.

Support a thesis that Victor aestheticizes tragedy to avoid confronting his own role in it—by staging this Romantic tableau, he casts himself as the sensitive mourner rather than the creator whose actions set the murder in motion.