The reference seems again to be to Paradise Lost (IV.49-53), and specifically to Satan's
attempt to break the chain with which God links all his creatures in an eternal sharing
of selves.

This was the easiest route into Italy, across southeastern France from Chambery to
Turin in northwestern Italy. The Mont Cenis Pass rises to only 6825 feet. This was
Napoleon's invasion route to Italy in 1796, and thereafter the post-road was improved
to allow uninterrupted traffic between the two countries. It was this road, indeed,
that the Shelleys themselves would take shiortly after publication of the novel, in
March 1818, on their trip to Italy.

In this phrase the Creature encapsulates what will become the dynamic force of the
third volume, an intense desire turned inside out and thus ironized, so that hatred
is pursued with the single-minded obsession of passionate love.

Twice in the paragraph stressing the word "cause," the Creature learns that pleasure
and pain proceed from the same force, a considerable development in his education
and mental sophistication. If this is the groundwork of morality, however, it is important
to recognize that it shares a common bond, as the earlier quotation from Percy Bysshe
Shelley's "Mutability" may remind us, with the scientific systems that form so conspicuous
a context for the novel (see II:2:3 and note). There are other elements emphasized
in the novel that likewise exist on a neutral ground that can result in either good
or ill: curiosity is an obvious case in point (II:2:16).

Given the richness of context provided by Milton's representation of the Judeo-Christian
Genesis in Paradise Lost, one cannot miss the alternate model being provided by the
Creature, a pantheism rooted in nature.

The Creature unconsciously echoes the very language Victor (II:1:6 and note) had used
to express his violent aversion to him earlier in the chapter before their encounter
in the mountains.

There is an unmistakeable erotic charge to the language of these paragraphs, but it
is almost metaphysical in its conception. The Creature suggests that the rage awakened
within him, which is fired by his rejection and desperate solitude, can only be slaked
by being converted into a psychologically and socially constructive alternative, which
is to say love. There are ramifications here as well for the "ardent" pursuits of
both Walton and Victor Frankenstein.

Although the notion of channeling libidinous forces into socially beneficial relationships
might be thought particularly suited to a woman's perspective on modern culture, the
conventions of the age kept most women authors from a direct engagement with issues
of sexuality and its repression or displacement. A notable exception is Mary Wollstonecraft.
Here one senses a true family resemblance.

As Alphonse Frankenstein continually speaks from the vantage of patriarch of the family,
asserting an almost tribal sense of bonded attachment, so the Creature confronts Victor
with his unique equivalence to those blood-ties, a bond Victor has from the first
spurned.

The novel's continuing self-reflexiveness is quietly underscored here, but so is the
idea of a personal library. A further step in the Creature's education and his exploration
of his identity, reading books, rather than just overhearing them being read, frees
him from another's tutelage, increasing his own sense of responsibility and maturity.
Whether such books can make him happier is another question entirely.

This is the third time this phrasing has been heard in the volume. The first is at
its very beginning where Victor confesses that he "ardently wished to extinguish that
life which [he] had so thoughtlessly bestowed" (II:1:6). The second occurence takes
place during the encounter on the Mer de Glace, where under the intensity of the experience
Victor adds to his weight of guilt, vowing to "extinguish the spark that I so negligently
bestowed" (II:2:8). The Creature thus taunts Victor with his own words and desires,
but stresses the character of the negligence involved: his life, he asserts, has been
"wantonly bestowed," which returns him to his earlier line of attack: "How dare you
sport thus with life?" (II:2:7).