Parallel Structure

"The summer months passed while I was thus engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit. It was a most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage, but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature"(pg 53).

This passage serves two purposes. First, it is a technique used to pass time quickly. Ultimately, there is not much for the reader to come to know of Frankenstein's work. It is not as if it is important to understand the daily proceedings of a man at work on human life. To the whole of the story it is rather unimportant. By talking about the seasons as a whole, Shelley is able to advance her story without the reader saying wait, what happened? Second, the description of the beautiful nature parallels the life Victor is creating. While he is creating life, life is continuing to go on. Victor believes his work to be beautiful, creating life, just as the life of summer nature. It is a comparison of nature. It is also the inverse of what Frankenstein will soon think of his creation. It will soon not be beautiful, and rather more like a gloomy rain that will fall upon him.