And now . . . whither should I bend my steps?
The reference is to the famous last lines of Paradise Lost
in which Adam and Eve forever depart Eden (XII.646-49). That the Creature speaks
in these elegiac tones suggests that, for him, this is the moment in
which he can no longer define himself, as he did in his appeal to the
elder De Lacey (2.7.8), as a being of
innocent and benevolent disposition. A second Adam, he has experienced his
fall.
