1. Returning to the outside frame.
The End
Returning to the outside frame.

2. End of Victor’s Narrative
What are Victor’s last words to Walton?
“Seek happiness in tranquility, and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries. Yet, why do I say this? I have myself been blasted in these hopes, yet another may succeed.”
Discuss as a class or in small groups
How does this support the central message or theme?

3. Walton’s Letters There is a shift in tense of the story.
Why would Shelley choose to make this decision?
What impact does it have on the reader?
First, in partners. Then have 2 groups share out.

4. Applying to Foster Because…Foster.
“And snow? It can mean as much as rain. Different things, though. Snow is clean, stark, severe, warm (as an insulating blanket, paradoxically), inhospitable, inviting, playful, suffocating, filthy (after enough time has elapsed)…snow, like death, is the great unifier, that it falls…’upon all the living and the dead’’’ (Foster 80-81).
Find 2 examples of references to snow/cold weather in the last chapter. How do they tie in with what is happening to Victor and Walton at this point in the story?
Identify the tone of the last chapter. With what does Mary Shelley leave us?

5. Ambiguity How does the novel “end”?
“He sprung from the cabin window, as he said this, upon the ice-raft which lay close to the vessel. He was soon borne away by the waves, and lost in darkness and distance.”
What, if any, conflicts are resolved?
How is this ending appropriate to the author’s purpose?
Divide the class into groups of 4 and have them discuss.
Have each group share out what they have come up with.