In this calendar week'due south Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle explores the origins of a famous quotation from a classic piece of work of Gothic literature

Here'due south a question for you. What is the proper name of the 'monster' in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein?

a) Frankenstein
b) He doesn't have one
c) Adam

The correct answer is b), and (at a push button) possibly c), but never a). Frankenstein, of course, is the proper noun of the creator of the 'monster': Victor Frankenstein is a pupil (non a medical doctor, and so not 'Dr Frankenstein' strictly) who undertakes to create a living, animate being from the diverse body parts he finds, animating it with life through various scientific experiments. (Note another oft-repeated fallacy: in the volume, he doesn't use electricity. Although Shelley knew about galvanism, she did not utilise this in the book.)

Even the term 'monster' has been frowned upon for some fourth dimension, given its negative connotations of the obscene and the menacing. Then the word 'Creature' has supplanted information technology in many instances. In his introduction to a contempo Oxford World's Classics edition of Shelley'south novel, Frankenstein: or Frankenstein: or `The Modern Prometheus': The 1818 Text (Oxford World'due south Classics Hardback Drove) , Nick Groom has made the case for another term: Beingness.

Technically, the being whom Frankenstein creates doesn't have a name equally such, but there'southward a telling passage which reveals much about both how he views himself, as well as the influences on Shelley's novel:

Oh, Frankenstein, be not equitable to every other and bruise upon me alone, to whom thy justice, and even thy clemency and affection, is most due. Remember that I am thy brute; I ought to exist thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no criminality. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was chivalrous and skilful; misery fabricated me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.

'I ought to be thy Adam': the Creature is referring to the Creation story from the Book of Genesis, only a few capacity later he will tell us how he discovered a portmanteau or case within the wood, which contained several books. I of these books is John Milton'due south Paradise Lost, an epic retelling of the story of the Fall of Adam and Eve and their subsequent expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

To the Biblical business relationship, Milton adds lots of background, so that Satan, who disguises himself as a serpent to tempt Eve to defy God and eat the forbidden fruit, was once an angel in heaven until he was expelled past God. Then there are 2 'falls' in Paradise Lost, with one fall (Satan, the 'fallen angel') precipitating the second (Adam and Eve). And the Creature quickly seizes upon the parallels between his own situation and that of Adam, the first man, in Milton's epic verse form.

And clearly, in referring to the 'fallen angel' in contrast to 'Adam' ('I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom g drivest from joy'), the Creature is alluding non to the Bible but to Milton. The Creature tells Frankenstein almost how much Milton's poem affected him:

But Paradise Lost excited different and far deeper emotions. I read information technology, equally I had read the other volumes which had fallen into my hands, equally a true history. It moved every feeling of wonder and awe that the picture of an almighty God warring with his creatures was capable of heady. I often referred the several situations, as their similarity struck me, to my own. Similar Adam, I was patently united past no link to whatever other being in existence; only his state was far different from mine in every other respect.

So although the Animal identifies with Adam, the only similarity he can identify between him and Milton's Adam, aside from their shared status equally a created 'first homo', is their alienation from all other beings. But Adam is isolated because he is, at least at first, the only human being in the world; the Creature, who sees other human beings equally his kin, is isolated in spite of the fact that he is not the only homo being in the earth.

Of course, his origins are somewhat different from those of other humans, but the key betoken which Shelley underscores throughout Frankenstein is that it is not the Creature's difference which alienates him from other people, but Frankenstein's shunning of his cosmos. The Creature is lone, a second Adam, not by default but by design, or rather by negligence.

He had come forth from the hands of God a perfect creature, happy and prosperous, guarded past the especial care of his Creator; he was allowed to converse with and larn knowledge from beings of a superior nature, but I was wretched, helpless, and alone. Many times I considered Satan equally the fitter emblem of my condition, for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose inside me.

In the Book of Genesis, God nurtured Adam and was conscious of not leaving him on his own without 'help meet' (Genesis 2:xviii-20). He creates the beasts of the field and fowls of the air (in Genesis 2, contrary to what chapter one appears to imply, God created animals subsequently he had made human), and called upon Adam to name them. And then, of course, God created Eve from Adam's rib so he would have human company. But where, the Fauna asks his creator, is his Eve?

But it was all a dream; no Eve soothed my sorrows nor shared my thoughts; I was lone. I remembered Adam's supplication to his Creator. But where was mine? He had abandoned me, and in the bitterness of my heart I cursed him.

Frankenstein does agree to create a female mate for the Fauna, but so he destroys the female creature in cloy, further igniting the Beast'southward acrimony.

'I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy': this quotation neatly explains why the Animal turns into the 'monster' he becomes. In all of these references to Adam, the Creature is likening himself to the Biblical first man, rather than challenge this equally his name. And 'ought' is the key discussion: the Creature cannot rightly merits himself as a second Adam, because Frankenstein has failed to play his role as God, nurturing him and finding him companionship. Instead, he has get Satan: another fallen angel. Frankenstein is Paradise Lost brought down to globe.

Oliver Tearle is the author ofThe Hugger-mugger Library: A Book-Lovers' Journeying Through Curiosities of History , available now from Michael O'Mara Books, andThe Tesserae, a long verse form virtually the events of 2020.