Both Uses of
torpor
in
Frankenstein
- Sometimes, indeed, I felt a wish for happiness and thought with melancholy delight of my beloved cousin or longed, with a devouring maladie du pays, to see once more the blue lake and rapid Rhone, that had been so dear to me in early childhood; but my general state of feeling was a torpor in which a prison was as welcome a residence as the divinest scene in nature; and these fits were seldom interrupted but by paroxysms of anguish and despair.†
Chpt 21
- Elizabeth alone had the power to draw me from these fits; her gentle voice would soothe me when transported by passion and inspire me with human feelings when sunk in torpor.†
Chpt 22 *
Definition:
-
(torpor) in people: a state of low-energy and inactivity
or less commonly:
in animals: a condition of biological rest or suspended animation -- (could be in the evening, during the cold, or as in a dormant state all winter)