I was dependent on none and related to none. The path of my departure was free, and there was none to lament my annihilation. My person was hideous and my stature gigantic. What did this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination? These questions continually recurred, but I was unable to solve them.

[…]

Everything is related in them which bears reference to my accursed origin; the whole detail of that series of disgusting circumstances which produced it is set in view; the minutest description of my odious and loathsome person is given, in language which painted your own horrors and rendered mine indelible. I sickened as I read. `Hateful day when I received life!' I exclaimed in agony. `Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even YOU turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemblance. Satan had his companions, fellow devils, to admire and encourage him, but I am solitary and abhorred.

[…]

Sometimes I allowed my thoughts, unchecked by reason, to ramble in the fields of Paradise, and dared to fancy amiable and lovely creatures sympathizing with my feelings and cheering my gloom; their angelic countenances breathed smiles of consolation. But it was all a dream; no Eve soothed my sorrows nor shared my thoughts; I was alone. 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. (15.5; 8; 11)

Here, Frankenstein's creation describes what it was like to discover that he was an experiment—one that was abhorrent to his "father." He laments that he's pretty much a lone wolf…a lone wolf made from chopped up corpse bits and reanimated through some undisclosed method. He just wants a friend or buddy or lover. Someone with whom to connect. So lonely, Mr. Lonely.

Frankenstein's monster does some pretty messed up things by the end of the novel, but at least at this point, we can't help feeling sorry for him. Here, Shelley takes the Romantic fascination with the individual—and by extension the Gothic concern about isolation—to create the most isolated being on earth.

Keep in mind, though, that this monster is not the moaning, brainless creature from the movies. He has a brain that thinks and a heart that feels. He knows how he was made, that he was made, that he was abandoned, that he's unnatural…and all that breaks his heart. Even the Devil has it better, and here, he's questioning his maker with the saddest "why did you make me?" ever.

Shelley loves her an allusion to Paradise Lost. Milton's epic poem describes Adam and Eve's fall from grace in the Garden of Eden, but it's also a creation story. Shelley wants her readers to keep in mind that this creation is outside of your traditional circle of life, all while drawing a comparison between God and what Dr. Frankenstein tried to be.