"When I was about five years old, while making an excursion beyond the frontiers of Italy, they passed a week on the shores of Lake Como (16)."

-Lake Como is a tourist attraction and is the third largest lake in Italy. It is also where Mary Shelly and her husband first looked for a home in 1818. It is a beautiful place, but during Shelly's excursions in Italy, both of her children died within a year apart. This marked the place of beauty with a shadow that is echoed in her writing. She writes of Lake Como as a nice place for Victor to spend his childhood, but she may also be foreshadowing the fact that he is tainted no matter where he goes. Shelley hints at another theme with this use of Lake Como that even though it may look beautiful from the outside, what is behind its beauty may not be beautiful at all.

http://www.english.upenn.edu/Projects/knarf/Articles/mellor9.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Shelley

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Como