when I viewed myself in a transparent pool
With pointed economy Mary Shelley returns to the context of Paradise
Lost, once again to emphasize the disparity between God's
accomplishment and that of Victor Frankenstein. This time it is centered
in the figure of Eve, who is transfixed by her beauty when, newly born,
she happens to catch sight of her perfect form mirrored in a pool (IV.449-88). In both the novel and epic,
though the effect is differently pointed in each, we read ironically
against Ovid's account of the myth of Narcissus in Book III of the
Metamorphoses.
