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Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.
This line spoken by the monster to Victor Frankenstein is one of the most quoted and important lines in the novel. It occurs in Chapter 10, after the monster has surprised Victor by confronting him at the summit of Montanvert, where Victor is hiking and trying to recuperate mentally after the murder of his brother William and the wrongful conviction and execution of Justine Moritz for his murder. Astonished to see William’s murderer in front of him, Victor has responded with outrage and insults, which the monster answers by pointing out all the suffering that he has undergone because of Victor creating him. Victor then hurls more insults at the monster and tries to attack him, but the monster easily evades him.
The monster’s sidestepping Victor is not surprising, given that Victor has created him to be physically superior to himself in every way. What is surprising, however, is the monster’s response: “Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.” With this simple but sincere expression of how precious life is to him, the monster proves himself to be at least equal to Victor in terms of mental capability. Up to this point in the novel, the monster has been only a lurking deadly specter, but in this scene, he is revealed to be not only sentient, but thoughtful and philosophically minded. (He is still a murderer, of course, but whether he kills precisely because he is a sensitive and unusually discerning creature will be a compelling topic throughout the rest of the novel.)
