In Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," Victor relates his history and describes his obsession with his "secret toil':
My limbs now tremble and my eyes swim with the remembrance; but then a resistless, and almost frantic, impulse urged me forward; I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit....and I shunned my fellow-creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime. (3)
Then, on a "dreary" night in November, he completes his experiement. The "wretch" which he has created has limbs in proportion and Victor selected what he believed were beautiful features. However, when life enters the being, when movement comes to the "watery eyes, the yellow skin that barely covered the work of muscles," Victor is absolutely horrified, fleeing the room, digust filling his heart.
As he attempts sleep, Victor is distrubed by his dreams; he thinks of Elizabeth as she walks in the streets of Ingolstadt. When he embraces her and kisses her, her lips become "livid with the hue of death" as she turns into his dead mother's corpse, with worms crawling out of it. Then, when the "demonical corpse" to which he has given life enters, it holds out its hand to Victor, while a grin "wrinkled" its cheeks. But, repulsed by the horror of its face, Victor does not understand or recognize the loving recognition of the newborn for its parent; instead, he rushes out of his dwelling and seeks refuge in the courtyard:
A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch. I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then; but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived. (3)
As the narrative continues, Victor essays to erase the memory of his terrible creation. But, when his little brother is murdered, he realizes that his family has paid for his sin:
Did any one indeed exist, except I, the creator, who would believe, unless his senses convinced him, in the existence of the living monument of presumption and rash ignorance which I had let loose upon the world? (7)
When Victor encounters his creation, he reproaches it,
'Devil,...do you dare approach me? and do not you fear the fierce vengeance of my arm wreaked on your miserable head? Begone, vile insect! or rather, stay, that I may trample you to dust!and, on! that I could with the extinction of your miserable existence, restore those victims whom you have so diabolically murdered! (10)
To this, the being relates his own history and tells Victor that he, having been rejected by humans, wishes to have a bride. If he has someone who will not be horrified by him and reject him, Frankestein's creation promises to not bring further harm to Victor's family. Victor agrees; nevertheless, he is later filled with shame and horror that he may unleash a second monster, so he destroys the new creature. Promising revenge, the "daemon" vows to be with Victor on his wedding night. Then, Victor's friend is strangled.
Still Victor cannot bring himself to disclose his terrrible secret to anyone. Yet, words woul "burst uncontrollably" from him. For instance, he tells his father,
I am the assassin of those most innocent victims; they died by my machinations. (22)
Truly, Victor Frankenstein is wretched with his guilt, and tortured by the "imperious voice of wretchedness, which sometimes desired to declare itself to the whole world...," but he cannot bring himself to confess his crime against Nature.
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