While hunting for food and firewood in the forest, the creature comes upon a great prize—the books Paradise Lost by Milton, Lives by Plutarch, and Sorrows of Werter by Goethe.

He reads all of the books as though they were true histories, and regards Milton's story of the struggle between God and his creations as completely factual. In his mind, the biblical story defines his own. He does not see himself as Adam, however, but as Satan: unlike Adam, he is alone, without a Creator to protect him or an Eve to sustain him. He is full of envy, wretched, and utterly an outcast.