Frankenstein Chapter 14 Summary

  • Now that the monster understands what the family is saying, he can understand their story, which is weirdly like what has happened to Victor's family.
  • Safie's Turkish father was accused wrongly of a crime (like Justine), and sentenced to death in Paris. Meanwhile, Safie was on the lookout for a European man to marry. Why? Because her mom (a Christian Arab enslaved by Turks) taught her that Muslim men treat women like property.
  • Quick Brain Snack: this idea that Muslim cultures thought of women as little better than animals is a really common stereotype in English thought of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. It actually became an early argument for women's rights: Christians shouldn't treat women like property because, unlike those heathens over there, Christians believe that women have souls. It was a fun time.
  • Anyway, Safie met Felix when he was visiting her father in prison, and they fell in love.
  • At the time, Agatha, Felix, and the blind old man (named De Lacey) were respected and rich Parisians.
  • Felix plotted to help Safie's father escape from prison, but he was discovered, and the family was exiled sans all their money.
  • Safie's father tried to force her to move to Constantinople, but she ran away to Felix.
  • These stories give the monster hope that Felix and De Lacey will be compassionate toward him, since they too have suffered injustice.
  • He seems to have quite a sophisticated understanding of the human psyche for a monster who's never talked to another living being.