At the beginning of volume one, chapter five, when Victor first beholds "the accomplishment of [his] toils," imagery works together with symbolism to express Victor's horror, anxiety, and pride in his creation.
Shelley uses powerful visual imagery to describe the setting: It is nighttime in November, and Victor sees his creation breathe and open his yellow eye "by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light." The vision that these words are meant to create in the reader's imagination is a horrifying and frightening one, and Shelley continues to describe in gory visual detail Victor's first impressions of the creature: his yellow translucent skin that covers "the work of muscles and arteries beneath . . . his long black hair, his white teeth . . . his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips." The details of this visual imagery are not only terrifying, they are also extremely impressive; Victor has gone to a lot of trouble to gather these body parts and attach them to each other, and he wants his listener to know every minute detail.
The symbol of the "half-extinguished light" represents Victor's complicated success in this situation, as light is a common symbol for knowledge. Victor has displayed extraordinary knowledge in his experiment, but the half-extinguished nature of that light suggests that his knowledge is incomplete. Victor's incomplete understanding of the creature and the implications of his success cause him great anxiety; he does not fully comprehend what he has done, and this realization causes him to experience a great shock.
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