• the original æra of my being

    To compare the creature's sense of his original identity with that contained in the
    opening sentence (I:1:1) of Victor Frankenstein's narrative is to mark a dramatic
    contrast in self-conception and cultural endowment. Also, as has often been noted,
    a second and striking context exists between these first memories and those of Adam
    in representing himself to the Archangel Raphael in Paradise Lost (VIII.250-96).