Analysis of Prometheus by Percy Bysshe Shelley

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Response Paper #5: Prometheus Unbound
In his work Prometheus, Percy Bysshe Shelley seeks to show how the sufferings of Prometheus are like those of Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost, and how the tyranny of Jupiter is like what he sees as the tyranny of Milton’s God. In doing this, Shelly ends up making a Christ of Satan and a Satan of God.
The intriguing character of Prometheus performs a change throughout the play. At the beginning of the play, Prometheus described as in great suffering and pain forever. Shelly seeks to make Prometheus a character like unto Milton’s Satan, but with more nobility. Prometheus is torched in a terrible hell for daring to defy the tyranny of Heaven. He is willing to bear the furies and torments of hell rather than to bend his knee to the ruler in heaven. Both Satan and Prometheus hate the God of heaven.
The hatred of Prometheus against Jupiter had made Prometheus curse Jupiter for and wish him pain and suffering for inflicting pain upon him. However, Shelly’s description of Prometheus soon changes as he begins to have pity on and repent his hatred of Jupiter. “It doth repent me: words are quick and vain; Grief for awhile is blind, and so was mine. I wish no living thing to suffer pain.” This repentance continues even as the furies of Jupiter’s wrath torment Prometheus. He has resigned himself to suffering, “Pain is my element as hate is thine” (pg.810)
In describing Prometheus like suffering Satan with more virtues, Shelly creates a Prometheus, into a character who is more like that of Milton’s Christ, than Milton’s Satan is. Like the Son of God in Book 4 of Paradise Lost, Prometheus is willing to suffer to free man from the cruelties of hatred and the bondage of Jupiter. Prometheus knows...

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...ished, and replaced by a new heavens and new earth with love, peace, and liberty.
Both Jupiter and Prometheus are not perfect replications of the figures they represent. For example, Prometheus does not have the perfect righteousness of Christ. His sin is part of the cause of his current suffering. The peace and redemption he gives has the possibility of being undone if hate returns, and there is no eternal punishment for man, only for gods. In addition, unlike Satan who knows there is God over him who has omnipotence, Jupiter believes himself truly omnipotent. These differences show us how there is no substitute for the substitution of Christ for us. We may try to bear the hate and torture of others and the guilt of our sin by ourselves, but we must caste all our burdens on the Lord, and he will free us from it, and give us peace and true hope, joy, and love.

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