The Creature has internalized the dynamics of Paradise Lost, setting himself as a
reactionary force to undo the world of his creator. That such desolation, rather than
a triumph, is inherently defeating and involves the undoing of his self is well understood
by Mary Shelley, yet to be learned by the Creature.

His limited reading immediately calls to his mind the mythic model for his profound
alienation, Milton's Satan, establishing a new line of psychological congruence between
the tormented Creature and Victor Frankenstein, who used the identical expression
at the end of Volume I (Chapter 8 in the 1831 edition): see I:7:30 and note. Victor
also makes similar statements in I:4:5 and II:1:1 (and note). The allusion is to Satan's
soliloquy upon Mount Niphates: Paradise Lost, IV.75.

We enter here into a third level of narrative, one that is embedded within Victor
Frankenstein's autobiography, which is itself being transcribed by Walton each night
of its recounting for his sister's future perusal. Issues of the authority and even
the reliability of any particular level of the narrative thus abound and have raised
serious debate in the critical literature on the novel. As the Creature twice in these
two paragraphs speaks of his "tale," so Victor refers to his narrative as a "tale"
as well (see I:L4:30 and I:3:13). The underlying question is how true is any tale.

This instinctive gesture is part of a pattern across the novel in which those with
sight must technically blind themselves in order to endure the presence of the Creature:
see I:4:3 and note.

This could mean, narrowly, that Felix had been educated for the French diplomatic
corps or, more broadly, to function in the upper levels of the government bureaucracy.
Whatever the case, there is a clear link between his family and expectations and those
of Victor Frankenstein, whose father and forefathers, from a strong sense of civic
duty, have held positions of public trust in Geneva.

As Victor is self-conscious about the shape and impact of his narrative (see I:7:13
and note), so is his Creature. His question also curiously echoes Justine Moritz's
recognition that facts alone are not sufficient to exonerate her (I:7:5 and note);
if she is to establish her claim to innocence she must move her auditors. Aside from
such thematic continuities within the novel, this issue is likewise very much alive
in the poetry that Percy Shelley was writing contemporaneously, particularly in The
Revolt of Islam, where Cythna's eloquence is an important element in spreading political
and cultural enlightenment: see particularly Canto 8.

Mary Shelley knows from experience of what she writes. There were actually two such
huts on Montanvert above the Sea of Ice, one made of wood and erected by an Englishman
named Blair in 1779, and the other of stone constructed by a Frenchmen, Desportes,
in the year 1795 (Charles Edward Mathews, The Annals of Mont Blanc [Boston: L.C. Page,
1900]).

Not only does the Creature's terrible solitude remind us of the mental isolation into
which Victor Frankenstein finds himself plunged, but it also takes us back to the
original scene in which this narrative is being recited, upon a ship in the midst
of the Arctic Ocean, remote from either land or other human beings. As in Walton's
letters (Letter I and Letter II), so here one cannot fail to hear the echo of Coleridge's
"Rime of the Ancient Mariner": "Alone, alone, all, all alone,/ Alone on a wide wide
sea!" (line 232-3).

As earlier in his ruminations about language acquisition (II:4:9), the Creature unconsciously
adopts the exact phrasing of Victor Frankenstein (I:2:7) as he looks forward to his
education at Ingolstadt.

Heavy irony attends this choice of diction. Not only are we reminded of the "ardent"
desire with which, when young, Victor (I:2:7) (and Walton—I:L1:2) eagerly pursued
scientific knowledge, but we can associate with that innocent desire the more complicated
ardency driving Victor obsessively toward the scientific breakthrough that was the
birth of this Creature: see I:3:1 and note. This is the point in the novel when the
language of intense love first is used to embody the designs of a passionate hatred.