It is a remarkable achievement of Mary Shelley's that by this point in the Creature's
narrative, this word (and its derivatives) have become fully ironized. Continually
repeated as it is (see, for instance, II:7:2 and II:7:9), this Enlightenment concept
stands in a kind of verbal isolation, unsupported by any examples that might convince
us of its dynamic, positive value, or even (outside the Creature's own actions) that
active benevolence exists. Thus the Creature's ironic conclusion seems altogether
appropriate.