Quote 2
Did
I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me Man, did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?
These lines appear on the title page
of the novel and come from John Milton’s Paradise Lost, when
Adam bemoans his fallen condition (Book X, 743–745).
The monster conceives of himself as a tragic figure, comparing himself
to both Adam and Satan. Like Adam, he is shunned by his creator,
though he strives to be good. These rhetorical questions epitomize
the monster’s ill will toward Victor for abandoning him in a world
relentlessly hostile to him and foist responsibility for his ugliness
and eventual evil upon Victor.
