The Creature Who Reads Paradise Lost
📖 The Creature Who Reads Paradise Lost
Hidden in a woodshed beside the De Lacey cottage, a being who has never been taught to speak teaches himself language by listening through a crack in the wall. He discovers Paradise Lost. He reads it "as a true history". He identifies with Satan — the outcast, the beautiful rebel punished for wanting too much.
Mary Shelley gives her Creature a literary education. She is asking you to pay attention to what he reads, because it tells you everything about how he understands himself.
English Literature glossary
- What is a frame narrative, and why does it matter in Frankenstein?
- <strong>Frame narrative:</strong> A story within a story — an outer narrator contains one or more inner narrators.<br><br><strong>In Frankenstein:</strong> Walton's letters frame Victor's account, which frames the Creature's own narration. Three layers total.<br><br><strong>Why it matters for essays:</strong> Shelley uses the frame to raise questions about reliability and authority. We only have the Creature's version of events as reported by Victor. Naming this structure (AO2: form) earns marks — say 'Shelley embeds the Creature's testimony within Victor's account, which itself is filtered through Walton's letters, so the reader must question each narrator's bias.'
Shelley constructs the Creature as born innocent. His first experiences are of beauty — light, warmth, birdsong — before Victor's horrified flight leaves him utterly alone. Shelley inverts the Garden of Eden: the Creature is Adam cast out before he has even had time in Paradise.
Earn the mark scheme marks
🧠 The Creature's Arc in Three Words
OUTCAST → SUPPLICANT → DESTROYER
Why it works: each word names what Shelley does, not just what happens. Outcast = Shelley constructs innocence abandoned (the De Lacey education, the rejected reflection). Supplicant = Shelley gives the Creature eloquence and rational argument (Mont Blanc, the companion demand). Destroyer = Shelley shows the consequence of hope annihilated (Arctic pursuit, final mourning). The arc is a philosophical argument about what society creates when it refuses to take responsibility for what it makes.
Now try it yourself
Quiz · Question 1 of 12
Which book does the Creature read as part of his self-education beside the De Lacey cottage?
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