Rime of the Ancient Mariner

“My heart palpitated in the sickness of fear; and I hurried on with irregular steps, not daring to look about me:--

Like one who, on a lonely road,

Doth walk in fear and dread,

And, having once turned round, walks on,

And turns no more his head;

Because he knows a frightful fiend

Doth close behind him tread." (Shelley 22).

In this part of the novel, Frankenstein is walking away from his home after the monster has come to life. The passage used here is from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. (http://etext.virginia.edu/stc/Coleridge/poems/Rime_Ancient_Mariner.html) This “frightful fiend” treading close behind Frankenstein is his monster, which he has just left in his apartment after seeing it awaken.