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Metaphor
Explanation and Analysis—Never-Dying Worm:
In Chapter 8, Victor uses the metaphor of the "never-dying worm" to express his guilt after Justine Moritz, his brother William’s nanny, is falsely accused of William's murder. The true murderer is in fact the Monster, whom Victor created and therefore feels responsible for:
But I, the true murderer, felt the never-dying worm alive in my bosom, which allowed of no hope or consolation.
Victor feels so guilty that he goes so far as to call himself a murderer. The "worm" Victor describes represents his knowledge of the truth, a knowledge that is active and restless. This metaphor expresses Victor’s psychological state, one of extreme remorse and suffering and from which he can never gain relief.
The worm is also an allusion to Mark 9:48 in the Bible, which refers to the "worm that never dies" as an expression of the unending torments of hell. Notably, in this Bible passage, Jesus has just been telling his disciples that it's better for a person to cut off the body parts with which they commit sin than to enter Hell physically intact. Though the language is hyperbolic, it conveys the idea that it's preferable to suffer in life than to do terrible things and suffer for them in the afterlife. In using this figurative language, especially by using a biblical allusion that most readers would readily pick up on, Shelley suggests that Victor’s actions have grave moral implications.
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