With an uncanny artistry that must be considered deliberate, in this and the next
paragraph Mary Shelley internalizes within her own writing the imaginative process
by which Victor Frankenstein is first swept along by his scientific advances ("my
imagination was too much exalted," I:3:7 and note), then becomes concerned by their
obsessiveness ("[it] had taken an irresistible hold of my imagination," I:3:11 and
note), and finally finds himself haunted by his own terrifying creation ("I imagined
that the monster seized me," I:4:15). Throughout the novel, although the power of
the human imagination is universally underscored, its uses or effects are as much
deeply questioned as they are celebrated.
In her introduction Mary Shelley appears to be purposefully collapsing the customary
distinction between the curiosity of the scientist and the creative afflatus of the
writer, a design we see carried out as well in the novel itself. Following these introductory
materials, we will turn immediately, as yet a third example of the same elemental
process, to the imaginative enthusiasm with which Robert Walton foresees his polar
explorations (I:L1:2).