Study Guide

This Dark Endeavor by Kenneth Oppel

About the AuthorI was born in Port Alberni, a mill town on Vancouver Island, British Columbia but spent the bulk of my childhood in Victoria, B.C. and on the opposite coast, in Halifax, Nova Scotia...At around twelve I decided I wanted to be a writer (this came after deciding I wanted to be a scientist, and then an architect). I started out writing sci-fi epics (my Star Wars phase) then went on to swords and sorcery tales (my Dungeons and Dragons phase) and then, during the summer holiday when I was fourteen, started on a humorous story about a boy addicted to video games (written, of course, during my video game

phase). It turned out to be quite a long story, really a short novel, and I rewrote it the next summer. We had a family friend who knew Roald Dahl — one of my favourite authors — and this friend offered to show Dahl my story. I was paralysed with excitement. I never heard back from Roald Dahl directly, but he read my story, and liked it enough to pass on to his own literary agent. I got a letter from them, saying they wanted to take me on, and try to sell my story. And they did.

Colin's Fantastic Video Adventure was published in 1985, in Britain and Canada and the U.S, and later in France. It was easily the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me -- and it gave me the confidence to think I could make writing my career.

I did my BA at the University of Toronto (a double major in cinema studies and English) and wrote my second children's novel The Live-Forever Machine in my final year, for a creative writing course. I married the year after graduation and spent the next three years in Oxford, where my wife was doing doctoral studies in Shakespeare. Since then we've lived in Newfoundland, Dublin -- and Toronto, where we now live with our three children.

This Dark Endeavor by Kenneth Oppel

Chapter 1

1. Based on the first chapter, what adjectives would you use to describe the following characters?

Victor (the narrator):

Konrad:

Henry:

Elizabeth:

Chapter 2

2. How did Elizabeth come to live with the Frankenstein family?

In what ways did she behave “like a feral cat” when she came to live with them?

What connection is there between where Elizabeth was before the Frankensteins adopted her and the lives of people in Mary Shelley’s circle?

3. In what country—and where in that country— do the Frankensteins live?

4. What kind of home is Chateau Frankenstein?

5. Why do you think the door to the library has such an elaborate lock?

6. Who built the Biblioteka Obscura?

7. What opinion does Victor’s father have of the books in the Biblioteka Obscura?

8. What does Victor mean when he describes his home as “a most peculiar one”?

How does this situation highlight differences between Victor and Konrad?

9. What is the terrible situation in France that Victor’s father talks about? (p. 26)

10. What religious differences exist in the Frankenstein household?

Chapter 3

11. What feelings are sparked in Victor when Konrad becomes ill?

What accounts for Victor’s becoming ill?

In what way is Victor jealous of Konrad (p. 43)

In what way does Victor envy Elizabeth? (pp. 46 and 48)

12. Why does Victor consider Konrad “the brighter star in our family’s constellation”?

13. How does Dr. Bartonne treat Konrad’s illness?

14. What do you think is the meaning of Victor’s dream about his father’s library?

15. Why does Victor want to return to the Dark Library?

16. What does Victor notice about Wilhelm Frankenstein’s portrait?

17. Do they find anything useful in the Dark Library? Explain.

18. What does Victor seek from Maria, the housekeeper?

19. What information does Maria give him?

What does she say about doctors on p. 65?

What is the literary/biographical/historical source of this remark?

Chapter 4

20. How do they find Polidori?

21. What is the significance of the name of the street on which Julius Polidori lives, Wollstonekraft Alley?

What is the significance of the doctor’s name, Polidori?

22. What is Polidori’s “shop” like?

What is Victor’s first impression of Polidori?

23. What does Polidori tell Victor about the Occulta Philosophia?

24. Describe Polidori’s history.

25. Why does Polidori say he owes his life to Victor’s father?

26. What is odd about Polidori’s pet, Krake?

27. At what point does Polidori become hopeful about being able to help Victor and his companions?

What is he actually able to do for them at this point?

28. What is the literary/biographical source of the sleepwalking/doll incident on pp. 87-89?

Chapter 5

29. Why does Victor consider Dr. Murnau’s methods ghoulish?

30. What is significant about the doctor’s name, Murnau?

About his place of origin?

31. What do Victor, Elizabeth and Henry need to do next, according to Polidori?

Do you as a reader trust Polidori? Could he be using Victor and his companions? If so, for what, why?

What does he give them to help them in their quest?

32. What does Murnau show Victor that shocks him?

What is the doctor’s theory about Konrad’s illness? (pp. 99-100)

Chapter 6

33. What characteristics are revealed about Victor, Elizabeth and Henry at the start of Ch. 6, as Victor prepares the Vision of the Wolf potion?

34. Besides making them be able to see better in the dark, what other effects does the potion seem to have on Victor and Elizabeth?

35. What does Elizabeth remark about the vulture families on p. 117, and how does this remark relate to a theme in the novel?

36. What does Elizabeth do to the vulture that shocks Victor? How does seeing “the savage expression on her face” make Victor feel?

37. What part does Krake play in the whole ordeal?

Chapter 7

38. How does Konrad respond to Dr. Murnau’s treatments?

What does Victor think that causes him to be “overcome with shame”?

What does Murnau suggest for Victor’ future? Why?

Why do they continue to gather ingredients for the Elixir of Life anyway?

39. Why does Victor want to keep his identity secret from Polidori? (pp. 130-131)

What other reason might Victor have for not wanting Konrad to take part in their search and adventures?

40. Why does Victor feel betrayed when he realizes that Konrad and Elizabeth are in love?

Chapter 8

41. Why is the lynx known as “Keeper of the Secrets of the Forest”?

42. What does Polidori say is needed from the coelacanth for the elixir?

43. What happens in the library between Victor and Elizabeth?

What dream does she describe, and what are the significant features of it?

What odd thing does Victor do to her? What side of each other do they seem to bring out?

In the end, how does Elizabeth come to know of Victor’s deception?

Does Victor regret the incident?

Chapter 9

44. What do Henry and Victor discuss on the way to find the map-maker’s widow?

45. What is their experience with the map-maker’s widow, Mrs. Temerlin, like? What details about it do you think are most important?

46. Why did Elizabeth not tell Konrad of Victor’s deception? (p. 153)

47. When Victor asks Elizabeth why she fell in love Konrad and not him, what is her explanation?

What does she tell Victor scares her about him?

48. How does Victor proceed with his work in the dungeon laboratory? Why?

What is he actually creating with the urine?

49. What lie does Victor tell Konrad at the end of the chapter?

Chapter 10

50. What does Victor bring that helps within the caves?

51. Examine the passage at the end of page 165. What major theme does it express (not only a theme for this book, but also in Frankenstein and in, well, the whole history of ideas)?

52. After they get through the narrow passage in the caves, what information does Elizabeth have for Victor about his birth? What is the significance of this?

53. What happens to Victor in the caves?

54. Are they at all successful in their quest?

Chapter 11

55. When questioned about their activities, what does Victor tell his father?

What doesn’t he tell him?

What new information does Victor’s father give them on p. 199?

56. What punishment does Victor’s father impose?

What dilemma does this pose?

57. What argument takes place on pp. 200-202?

Do you sympathize with Victor’s point of view here? Why or why not?

58. How does the chapter end?

Chapter 12

59. What is the significance of Victor’s dream at the beginning of the chapter?

60. What does Victor discover about his father? What is his reaction? (p. 205)

61. Why does Victor decide not to use alchemy to win over Elizabeth?

62. What does Elizabeth do one night?

What conflict in the novel does this cause or deepen?

63. What does Konrad tell Victor is his problem? What does he say Victor must accept?

Chapter 13

64. Before he leaves for Lyon to get Dr. Murnau, what does Victor’s tell him about his own work in alchemy?

What were his reasons for doing what he did?

Does this story seem in character for Victor’s father? Explain.

65. Why does Victor’s mother send the children to the house in Geneva?

66. Elizabeth questions Victor’s motive for wanting to save Konrad, believing that it may be more for his own glorification. Do you think Victor is motivated to save him out of self-interest?

Chapter 14

67. What sacrifice does Victor make for the elixir?

68. What is revealed about Polidori’s motive for helping to make the elixir?

What does he try to do?

What does Polidori reveal about the marrow for the elixir?

How much elixir did Polidori intend to make, and why doesn’t this happen?

What does he try to do?

69. What is your final assessment of Polidori? Is his character well developed by the author, or does his turnabout seem a weak plot device?

Chapter Fifteen

70. How do Victor, Elizabeth and Henry get back to Geneva, and what challenger do they face before they arrive?

71. What inner conflicts ignite for victor on the trip back to Geneva? (pp. 268-270)

Chapter16

72. What seems to be the effect of the elixir on Konrad?

What is Victor’s mother’s reaction when she finds out about it?

73. What has Polidori apparently done?

What does Victor fear?

74. What does Dr. Murnau say about the elixir?

What dies Victor’s father say about the whole situation? (pp. 286-287)

Is this in keeping with his character? How so?

What is Victor’s reaction? What does he refuse to do?

75. What is the significance of Victor calling the recovering Konrad his “creation” on p. 288?

76. Elizabeth is upset that her face will be left scarred from the lynx. Why does Victor find her “all the more desirable for it”?

On pp. 291-292, what indications does Elizabeth give that perhaps her love for Konrad is not quite as rock-solid as she says?

77. When Konrad dies in his sleep, Victor wonders if the elixir failed or if Konrad had been ill too long for it to help him. What do you think is the reason? Should Victor blame himself for Konrad’s death?

78. What is significant about how Konrad’s body is interred?

79. Victor promises himself that he will see his brother alive again. Do you think Victor will be able to bring Victor back from the dead? How do you think he might go about finding a way to do that?