Frankenstein: The Modern
Prometheus
Preface
Mary Shelley
subtitled her novel "The Modern Prometheus." According to the Greeks,
Prometheus stole fire from the gods. As punishment, he was chained to a rock,
where an eagle each day plucked at his liver. Haughty Prometheus sought fire
for human betterment--to make tools and warm hearts. Similarly, Mary Shelley's
arrogant scientist, Victor Frankenstein, claimed "benevolent intentions,
and thirsted for the moment when I should put them in practice." Frankenstein
endures not only because of its infamous horrors but for the richness of the
ideas it asks us to confront--human accountability, social alienation, and the
nature of life itself. These passages illuminate some of them.
Paradise Lost
Did I request
thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me man? Did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?
Lines from John
Milton's Paradise Lost
From the title page of Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheuse,
1818
In Frankenstein, the intelligent and sensitive monster created by
Victor Frankenstein reads a copy of Milton's Paradise Lost, which
profoundly stirs his emotions. The monster compares his situation to that of
Adam. Unlike the first man who had "come forth from the hands of God a
perfect creature," Frankenstein's creature is hideously formed. Abandoned
by Victor Frankenstein, the monster finds himself
"wretched, helpless, and alone."
Surrounded by Ice
A sledge . . . had
drifted towards us in the night, on a large fragment of ice. Only one dog
remained alive; but there was a human being within it. . . . His limbs were
nearly frozen, and his body dreadfully emaciated by fatigue and suffering. I
never saw a man in so wretched a condition.
Robert Walton to
his sister Mrs. Saville
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheuse, 1818
Frankenstein opens with a series of letters written by Arctic explorer Robert Walton,
engaged in a personal quest to expand the boundaries of the known world. It is
Walton who first encounters Victor Frankenstein in the Arctic desperately
searching for the monster he has created. The explorer becomes the only person
to hear Victor Frankenstein's strange and tragic tale.
The Spark of Life
I beheld a stream
of fire issue from an old and beautiful oak . . . and so soon as the dazzling
light vanished the oak had disappeared, and nothing remained but a blasted
stump. . . . I eagerly inquired of my father the nature and origin of thunder
and lightning. He replied, "Electricity."
Victor
Frankenstein to Robert Walton
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818
In Mary Shelley's day, many people regarded the new science of electricity
with both wonder and astonishment. In Frankenstein, Shelley used both
the new sciences of chemistry and electricity and the older Renaissance
tradition of the alchemists' search for the elixir of life to conjure up the
Promethean possibility of reanimating the bodies of the dead.
Unveiling the Recesses of Nature
The modern masters
promise very little. . . . but these philosophers. . .
have indeed performed miracles. . . . They have discovered how the blood
circulates, and the nature of the air we breathe. They have acquired new and
almost unlimited powers; they can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the
earthquake, and even mock the invisible world with its own shadows.
Professor Waldman
to his class at the University of Ingolstadt
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818
By the early nineteenth century, philosophers like physician Erasmus Darwin
and chemist Humphry Davy, both well known to Mary
Shelley, pointed the way to mastery of the physical universe. Discoveries about
the human body and the natural world promised the dawn of a new age of medical
power, when such things as reanimation of dead tissue and the end of death and
disease seemed within reach.
Midnight Labors
Who shall conceive
the horrors of my secret toil, as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the
grave, or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay?
Victor
Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818
With feverish excitement, Victor Frankenstein pursues nature to her hiding
places. By moonlight, he gathers the body parts he needs by visits to the
graveyard, to the charnel house, to the hospital dissecting room and the
slaughterhouse. Although he finds his solitary preoccupation repulsive, he is
not deterred from his quest to restore life.
Hideous Progeny
I collected the
instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a
spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. . . . His yellow
skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of
a lustrous black, and flowing . . . [it] formed a more horrid contrast with his
watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as
the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled
complexion, and straight black lips.
Victor
Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818
Overcome by the horror of what he has done, Victor Frankenstein abandons
the "miserable monster" he fathered in his laboratory. That evening a
nightmare disturbs his sleep; Elizabeth, his fiancée, becomes in his arms the
decaying corpse of his own dead mother. The next morning when he returns to his
"workshop of filthy creation," the monster has escaped.
Poor, Helpless, Miserable Wretch
But where were my
friends and relations? No father had watched my infant days, no mother had
blessed me with smiles and caresses; or if they had, all my past life was now a
blot, a blind vacancy in which I distinguished nothing. From my earliest
remembrance I had been as I then was in height and proportion. I had never yet
seen a being resembling me. . . . What was I?
The Monster
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818
Mary Shelley gave her monster feelings and intelligence. Fatherless and
motherless, the monster struggles to find his place in human society, struggles
with the most fundamental questions of identity and personal history. Alone, he
learns to speak, to read, and to ponder "his accursed origins." All
the while, he suffers from the loneliness of never seeing anyone resembling
himself.
Remaining Silent
I paused when I
reflected on the story I had to tell. A being whom I myself had formed, and
endued with life, had met me at midnight among the precipes. . . . I well knew
that if any other had communicated such a relation to me, I should have looked
upon it as the ravings of insanity. Besides, the strange nature of the animal
would elude all pursuit, even if I were so far credited as to persuade my
relatives to commence it. . . . I resolved to remain silent.
Victor
Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818
Abandoned by his creator, the monster takes his revenge on Victor
Frankenstein by killing his younger brother, William. Frankenstein's silence,
in the face of the monster's murderous actions, exacts a terrible price. His
self-imposed isolation from society mirrors the social isolation the monster
experiences from all who see him. Frankenstein's decision to remain silent
about the monster leads to further tragedy.
A Monstrous Mate
I demand a
creature of another sex, but as hideous as myself. . . . It is true, we shall
be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that
account we shall be more attached to one another. Our lives will not be happy,
but they will be harmless, and free from the misery I now feel. Oh! my creator, make me happy; let me feel gratitude toward you
for one benefit! Let me see that I excite the sympathy of some existing thing;
do not deny me my request!
The Monster to
Victor Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818
Victor Frankenstein initially agrees to create a mate for his monster. But
as Frankenstein begins to assemble an Eve for his Adam, he grows terrified by
the prospect that this female creature will be "ten thousand times more
malignant" than her companion, and that the two might themselves produce
"a race of devils." Breaking his promise to the monster, Frankenstein
disposes of the body parts he gathered to produce the female creature. Inflamed
with hatred, the monster sets outs to destroy in Frankenstein's life all that he coveted for his own. After killing Clerval, Frankenstein's best friend, the monster murders
Elizabeth, Frankenstein's bride, on their wedding night.
The Greatness of His Fall
The forms of the
beloved death flit before me, and I hasten to their arms. Farewell, Walton!
Seek happiness in tranquility, and avoid ambition, even if it be only the
apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries.
Yet why do I say this? I have myself been blasted in these hopes, yet another
may succeed.
Victor
Frankenstein to explorer Robert Walton
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818
As he lies dying aboard Walton's ship, Frankenstein offers an ambivalent
assessment of his own conduct. In both the subtitle (The Modern Prometheus) of
her novel and through Frankenstein's dying words, Mary Shelley suggests that
Frankenstein's misfortune did not arise from his Promethean ambition of
creating life, but in the mistreatment of his creature. Frankenstein's failure
to assume responsibility for the miserable wretch he fathered in his workshop
is his real tragedy.
Monstrous Remorse
Once I falsely
hoped to meet with beings, who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for
the excellent qualities which I was capable of bringing forth. I was nourished
with high thoughts of honour and devotion. But now
vice has degraded me beneath the meanest animal. . . . the
fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. . . . I am quite alone.
The Monster to
explorer Robert Walton
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818
Encountering Robert Walton aboard his ship, the monster expresses
overwhelming remorse for his frightful catalogue of misdeeds, the deaths of
William, Clerval, Elizabeth, and his creator. The
creature informs the explorer that he will destroy himself in the frozen north,
and disappears in the icy waves. The tragedy
of Frankenstein and his monster is complete.
U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM)
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/
Last updated: 28 January 1998
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Academic year 2008/2009
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Lorena Levy Ballester
lolevyba@alumni.uv.es