Suggestions
Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select.Please wait while we process your payment
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
Please wait while we process your payment
By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy.
Don’t have an account? Subscribe now
Create Your Account
Sign up for your FREE 7-day trial
Already have an account? Log in
Your Email
Choose Your Plan
Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan!
Purchasing SparkNotes PLUS for a group?
Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more!
Price
$24.99 $18.74 /subscription + tax
Subtotal $37.48 + tax
Save 25% on 2-49 accounts
Save 30% on 50-99 accounts
Want 100 or more? Contact us for a customized plan.
Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
SparkNotes Plus
You'll be billed after your free trial ends.
7-Day Free Trial
Not Applicable
Renews February 11, 2023 February 4, 2023
Discounts (applied to next billing)
DUE NOW
US $0.00
SNPLUSROCKS20 | 20% Discount
This is not a valid promo code.
Discount Code (one code per order)
SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND AVOID BEING CHARGED, YOU MUST CANCEL BEFORE THE END OF THE FREE TRIAL PERIOD. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Free trial is available to new customers only.
Choose Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
For the next 7 days, you'll have access to awesome PLUS stuff like AP English test prep, No Fear Shakespeare translations and audio, a note-taking tool, personalized dashboard, & much more!
You’ve successfully purchased a group discount. Your group members can use the joining link below to redeem their group membership. You'll also receive an email with the link.
Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership.
Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! Continue to start your free trial.
Please wait while we process your payment
Your PLUS subscription has expired
Please wait while we process your payment
Please wait while we process your payment
The saintly soul of Elizabeth shone like a shrine-dedicated lamp in our peaceful home.
In this simile, Victor compares Elizabeth’s presence to the light of a lamp in a shrine, suggesting she projected an air of holiness wherever she went.
. . .one by one the various keys were touched which formed the mechanism of my being; chord after chord was sounded, and soon my mind was filled with one thought, one conception, one purpose.
As Victor listens to Professor M. Waldman’s lecture, he compares himself to a piano on which the professor plays musical chords, his various ideas harmonizing to form a singular composition in Victor’s mind.
. . .vivid flashes of lightning dazzled my eyes, illuminating the lake, making it appear like a vast sheet of fire;….
As Victor walks toward home at night through the countryside, he compares the way the lake looks in a lightning storm to a huge patch of flames.
But I, the true murderer, felt the never-dying worm alive in my bosom, which allowed of no hope or consolation.
In the presence of innocent Justine, Victor’s guilt is a “worm” in his chest that eats away at him endlessly.
I feel as if I were walking on the edge of a precipice, towards which thousands are crowding and endeavouring to plunge me into the abyss.
In this simile, Elizabeth compares the peer pressure to condemn Justine, whom she believes to be innocent, to being pushed toward a cliff by thousands of people.
I began also to observe, with greater accuracy, the forms that surrounded me and to perceive the boundaries of the radiant roof of light which canopied me.
As the monster explains how the world gradually came into focus after he was created, he compares the sky to a roof made of light.
Like Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence . . .
After reading Paradise Lost, the monster likens himself to Adam, who was the only one of his kind before God made Eve to be his companion.
Of what materials was I made that I could thus resist so many shocks, which, like the turning of the wheel, continually renewed the torture?
Victor likens his emotional suffering after Henry Clerval’s death to being tortured on the wheel, a Medieval device used to slowly break the bodies of the condemned.
Sweet and beloved Elizabeth! I read and reread her letter, and some softened feelings stole into my heart and dared to whisper paradisiacal dreams of love and joy; but the apple was already eaten, and the angel's arm bared to drive me from all hope.
In this metaphor, Victor compares marrying Elizabeth to a paradise from which he will be driven out like Adam and Eve after they ate the forbidden fruit.
Even the sailors feel the power of his eloquence; when he speaks, they no longer despair; he rouses their energies, and while they hear his voice they believe these vast mountains of ice are mole-hills which will vanish before the resolutions of man.
In this metaphor, Walton explains that Victor is so motivational for the worried sailors that when he speaks, they believe they can overcome the Arctic “mountains of ice" as if they were mere "mole-hills.”
Please wait while we process your payment