With pointed economy Mary Shelley returns to the context of Paradise Lost, once again
to emphasize the disparity between God's accomplishment and that of Victor Frankenstein.
This time it is centered in the figure of Eve, who is transfixed by her beauty when,
newly born, she happens to catch sight of her perfect form mirrored in a pool (IV.449-88).
In both the novel and epic, though the effect is differently pointed in each, we read
ironically against Ovid's account of the myth of Narcissus in Book III of the Metamorphoses.

Like Agatha's dress in the previous paragraph, this is another sign of poverty, but
it is likewise an indication of how close to subsistence exists this entire family.
In this they share the condition of the Creature who attaches himself to them partly
on the basis of their simplicity of manners and means.

The season is yet early enough that the produce of late-autumn is still growing even
with an early snowfall.

Properly Chamonix, this valley lies in France at the northern approach to Mont Blanc.
Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley, along with Claire Clairmont, made an excursion to this
valley of almost a week from 21 to 27 July, 1816, while Mary was deep in the writing
of her novel. A long description of the excursion, written by Shelley to Thomas Love
Peacock, was included in A History of a Six Weeks' Tour (see Letter 4).

The last word of Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Mont Blanc" is vacancy. In that poem the
mountain is a "blank" slate upon which the mind writes the nature of reality. The
present scene, we must recall, takes place not in the hovel attached to the De Lacey
cottage, but rather in a hut above the Sea of Ice on Mont Blanc. It is here, fittingly,
that the Creature, another blank slate, lives removed from humanity and where he appeals
to his creator for identity, to be written upon.

He means this in a literal sense: there is no one who feels with or for him, who accepts
him as a fellow human being.

As with her earlier treatment of Justine Moritz, Mary Shelley seems unable to keep
a certain class bias from entering her discourse. In the case of Alphonse Frankenstein
(I:6:36 and note) this may be something of a key to his character; but the Creature's
emphasis on gentility after six weeks of existence might seem ill-conceived to some
readers. It would appear, however, that the author is trying to suggest the Creature's
own natural gentility rather than an innate snobbery in him.

Himself victimized on account of his religion (II:6:3), the wily Turk is as bigoted
as those who persecute him. He is likewise a type of Turkish villain frequently found
on the early nineteenth-century stage, in England and across Europe, so there is another
level of bigotry being appealed to here as well.

This is not the first time that Victor has been thought "heartless": he levels the
charge at his own behavior after Clerval's arrival in Ingolstadt (I:4:13 and note).

This is the Creature's first sense of how he appears as a figure within a natural
order. It is not a pleasant discovery to find oneself a discordant presence, but,
as the ensuing paragraph relates, a kind of natural logic helps this eight-foot anomalous
being not to feel himself divorced from the natural order. On the contrary, he seems
instinctively able to recognize his affinity with it, even down to what he shares
with beings as tiny as sparrows.