"He came like a protecting spirit to the poor girl, who committed herself to his care" (Volume I, Chapter 1) (Simile)
Like the common expression of someone being a "guardian angel," this simile compares Frankenstein Senior's compassion and caring for Caroline to the image of a blessed spirit aiding her.
"The saintly soul of Elizabeth shone like a shrine dedicated lamp in our peaceful home" (Volume I, Chapter 2)" (Simile)
Here, Frankenstein compares the compassion and moral goodness of Elizabeth to a holy light banishing darkness.
"[In] drawing the picture of my early days, I also record those events which led, by insensible steps, to my after tale of misery: for when I would account to myself for the birth of that passion, which afterwards ruled my destiny, I find it arise, like a mountain river, from ignoble and almost forgotten sources; but, swelling as it proceeded, it became the torrent which, in its course, has swept away all my hopes and joys" (Volume I, Chapter 2) (Simile)
Frankenstein compares his fascination with reanimation to a mountain river: like a river, it has a unique source (alchemy books and his father's disapproval); like a river, it has a current in which he was swept up and pulled towards his destiny.
Simile - "Sir Isaac Newton is said to have avowed that he felt like a child picking up shells beside the great and unexplored ocean of truth" (Volume I, Chapter 2).
Frankenstein uses this simile to express the sentiment of childlike curiosity, humility, and wonderment that (according to Newton) comes with learning small truths about the vast universe through science.
"What had been the study and desires of the wisest men since the creation of the world was now within my grasp. Not that, like a magic scene, it all opened upon me at once: the information I had obtained was of a nature rather to direct my endeavours so soon as I should point them towards the object of my search, than to exhibit that object already accomplished. I was like the Arabian who had been buried with the dead, and found a passage to life, aided only by one glimmering, and seemingly ineffectual, light" (Volume I, Chapter 4) (Simile)
According to Frankenstein, his pursuit of knowledge over the mastery of life was slow, piecemeal, and tedious, like a man navigating a dark tunnel using a single, minuscule light.
