As I said this I suddenly beheld the figure of a man, at some distance, advancing towards me with superhuman speed. He bounded over the crevices in the ice, among which I had walked with caution; his stature, also, as he approached, seemed to exceed that of man.
Chapter 10 · Victor Frankenstein
Context
As Victor gazes at the glacier, he suddenly notices a figure approaching him with extraordinary speed and agility, moving effortlessly across the ice where Victor himself had struggled. He soon realizes it is the Creature.
Analysis
Shelley stretches Victor's perception across three stages—'at some distance,' 'as he approached,' and the delayed recognition—which enacts Victor's reluctance to admit what he is seeing. The contrast between the Creature's 'superhuman speed' and Victor's earlier caution builds a power reversal: the Creature is at home in this harsh landscape while Victor is the intruder. The phrase 'seemed to exceed that of man' is carefully hedged—'seemed'—because Victor is already beginning to dehumanize what he sees, preparing the reader for the verbal violence that follows.
Essay Tip
Use this to argue that Shelley constructs the Creature's physical superiority visually before he speaks, so that Victor's subsequent verbal dominance ('vile insect') registers as compensatory rhetoric—he controls language because he cannot control the encounter.