he really is. These discoveries of knowledge cause severe pain to the creature: "'I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections inflicted upon me; I tried to dispel them, but sorrow only increased with knowledge. Oh, that I had forever remained in my native wood, nor known nor felt beyond the sensations of hunger, thirst, and heat!'" (p. 115) The creature also comes upon some books that also enhance his knowledge of life. As the creature reads the Sorrows of Werter, he learns about death and suicide, which begin to fill him with wonder. He also applies much of the book to his own feelings and conditions, which leads him to the questions of who he is: "'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?'" (p. 123) The creature becomes aware that he knows nothing of his background, and is unable to find out. The volume of Plutarch's Lives contains the histories of the first founders of the ancient republics and
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