NOTES

the apple had already been eaten

Victor here construes himself in terms of the fallen Adam, by his transgressive actions forever barred from Paradise. The angel whose "arm [is] bared" is the figure Blake called "the Covering Cherub," assigned to make certain that no return was possible: it is to be assumed that by this figure Victor identifies his Creature as an instrument of divine destiny.

See also Milton's description of this banishment in Paradise Lost, XII.632-44.