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In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, what happened to Victor's mother before he leaves for Ingolstadt?

In Chapter 3 of Mary Shelley's classic of Gothic literature Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, a young Victor Frankenstein is preparing to depart for Ingolstadt, his father having determined that the promising student's education would not be complete lest Victor expand his horizons by leaving home. Before Victor departs for the university there, however, Elizabeth, the young woman who has been raised by Victor's parents and to whom his mother envisions he will eventually marry, becomes ill with scarlet fever. Both Victor's mother and Elizabeth have heretofore been described in angelic terms, and Elizabeth's illness is a serious blow to the Frankenstein family. While she recovers, however, Victor's mother, who has tenderly and dutifully nursed Elizabeth back to health, has contracted the disease. In his narrative, Victor notes that his mother had been urged not to tend to the ill girl because of this risk, but, as he relates his story,



"[W]hen she (Victor's mother) heard that the life of her favorite was menaced, she could no longer control her anxiety. She attended her sickbed; her watchful attentions triumphed over the malignity of the distemper—Elizabeth was saved, but the consequences of this imprudence were fatal to her preserver. On the third day my mother sickened; her fever was accompanied by the most alarming symptoms, and the looks of her medical attendants prognosticated the worst event."



Victor's mother, to whom he was very close, dies from her illness. As Victor describes his life story to Robert Walton, his mother's death, in retrospect, constituted an ominous warning of the tragedies that would follow, and which would haunt the now-aged scientist for the rest of his life. Following a period of mourning, Victor finally departs for the university at Ingolstadt, where he will embark upon the experiments that will destroy all he holds dear.

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