NOTES

the original æra of my being

To compare the creature's sense of his original identity with that contained in the opening sentence (I:1:1) of Victor Frankenstein's narrative is to mark a dramatic contrast in self-conception and cultural endowment. Also, as has often been noted, a second and striking context exists between these first memories and those of Adam in representing himself to the Archangel Raphael in Paradise Lost (VIII.250-96).