Although this is an important plot device by which the Creature is allowed to advance
in his education, it is more than simply that. What the Creature in his enforced solitude
thought of as a "godlike science" (II:4:9) and "the art of language" (II:4:18) is
an acquisition essential for his claim to true humanness. As Safie is enfolded by
the De Lacey family through acquiring their language, so, the Creature hopes, he can
likewise break down the barriers of Otherness in which he is compelled to live. If
language has up to now been used as an instrument for his self-knowledge (note), with
Safie's arrival it will become the actual means by which he will endeavor to secure
a place in a human community.

If he departed the hut at noon, then the Creature would have had some five hours to
travel further before dusk fell.

As is manifest in the previous chapter (see I:7:13 and note), for Victor remorse has
a physical and mental effect akin to that of poison. Already worn down constitutionally,
Victor will feel its debilitating effects from this point forward.

Whether or not this must necessarily be the case, it is a premise of Mary Shelley's
novel that normative aesthetic categories are, indeed, the instrument for ostracizing
the Creature from all human society.

The self-deceit is, indeed, painful, since in his continual awareness that there is
no reality underlying his imaginings, the Creature testifies to the split existence
in which he lives. Here, the imagination is decidedly not a boon.

The Creature refers to the numerous philosophical speculations of Werter.

This not only makes sense in the context of the De Laceys' civilized demeanor, which
for many months now has served as the Creature's behavioral model, but also specifically
in respect to the elder De Lacey's explicit understanding of the dynamics of alienation
just witnessed in the Creature's night-time rampage. The use of political terminology
reminds us of the Creature's reading matter (particularly of the education furnished
him by Volney's Ruines), but also suggests that he still thinks it possible to negotiate
a place for himself within the human polity.

The Mer de Glace, the great glacier decending from Mont Blanc: a popular tourist site
in 1816, when the Shelley party visited it that July, described in A History of a
Six Weeks' Tour, Letter IV. It was taken to be the very epitome of Nature's sublime
(and perhaps antihuman) power.

However important language is as an instrument to knowledge of the world and the self,
its compression to coherent meaning in literature is what affords the Creature his
true education.

The resemblance to Satan stems at first from the Creature's sense of having no place
in the universe, of being designed for alienation in the fulfillment of the Genesis.
This is, indeed, the ground upon which his colloquy with Victor Frankenstein began:
see II:2:7 and note. The Satanic prototype will extend, however, to the point of having
external not simply psychological ramifications: as Satan's only acts are reactions,
attempts to undo the perfection of God's universe, so the Creature will claim Victor's
attention by destroying what he most values.