Frankenstein Chapter 2, Excerpt 2
By Mary Shelley
Victor Frankenstein continues recounting the influences that lead to his great experiment:
An accident again changed the current of my ideas. When I was about fifteen years old
we had retired to our house near Belrive, when we witnessed a most violent and terrible
thunderstorm. It advanced from behind the mountains of Jura, and the thunder burst at
once with frightful loudness from various quarters of the heavens. I remained, while the
storm lasted, watching its progress with curiosity and delight. As I stood at the door, on a
sudden I beheld a stream of fire issue from an old and beautiful oak which stood about
twenty yards from our house; and so soon as the dazzling light vanished, the oak had
disappeared, and nothing remained but a blasted stump. When we visited it the next
morning, we found the tree shattered in a singular manner. It was not splintered by the
shock, but entirely reduced to thin ribbons of wood. I never beheld anything so utterly
destroyed.
What would have to change for there to be dialogue in this passage? (5 points)
Fewer characters would have to appear.
The passage would have to be shorter.
O More characters would have to appear.
O The passage would have to be scarier.