Victor Frankenstein, the creator of a man-made life form, in a romance of Mary Shelley, a 19th century English Sheherazade, regrets his own experiments in search for life creation or the conquest of death. The success of his work directly leads to serious miseries for himself. He reasons that the created monster might have killed his beloved brother William & consequently it has caused innocent servant “girl of merit” Justine’s execution by a tricked evidence — later, readers find that his reasoning is correct, & he also loses his best friend Henry Clerval & his newly bride Elizabeth. In chapter 10, Victor Frankenstein has got faith & fear in nature wandering on a snowy mountain path to a viewpoint of Mont Blanc & is very sorry for himself who has tried to rewrite the natural law. Mary Shelley quotes Mutability, her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem to express Victor Frankenstein’s mind in this chapter.
We rest; a dream has power to poison sleep,
We rise; one wandering thought pollutes the day.
We feel, conceive, or reason; laugh or weep,
Embrace fond woe, or cast away our cares away:
It is the same! — For be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free;
Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow.
Naught may endure but mutability.
