The Modern Prometheus; it is an alternative name given to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Victor Frankenstein’s punishment for bestowing fire (life) upon the lifeless was torment and an eternal penance of suffrage. In the end, all the life he knew was gone. From a psychological stand point, there was more life he lost than what is clearly stated because of his impure manufacture of life. By looking at the Id, Ego, Superego, the Erikson Stages of psychosocial development, and Mary Shelley’s purpose of writing Frankenstein, one can see people’s attempt to control life is futile against nature’s revenge, and the domination of science over people grows when the quest for answer goes too far. For many years after Frankenstein, scientists and the world around us have become enthralled with the answers to eternal life, but Mary Shelley shows there are more lives to be lost than the one wrongfully created.
Prometheus was a mythological Greek titan son that was punished severely for bestowing the eternal fire from Heaven to the mortals of Greece. The gods rebuked him from grace and chained his body to stone where every day a griffin would eat his abdomen and every night, an inch before death, he painfully healed so the process could continue repeatedly for all of time (Carol Dougherty). This Greek myth has an odd reflection to Victor Frankenstein struggle after his sin against God. Although in the Greek myth, Prometheus seems like a hero, Victor, on the other hand, is an example of science’s domination over civilization, and the outcome of Frankenstein is that of nature’s vengeance against his impurity.
Victor Frankenstein is the Id of the novel; throughout the novel, even though Victor is thinking constantly, he does not take time to ac...
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... The Life Cycle Completed. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997. Print.
Ginn, Sherry. "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: Science, Science Fiction, or Autobiography?" Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: Science, Science Fiction, or Autobiography? Wingate University, 2003. Web. Mar.-Apr. 2011.
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"Id, Ego, Superego, and the Unconscious in Psychology 101 at AllPsych Online." Psychology Classroom at AllPsych Online. Web. 12 Apr. 2011. .
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein, A modern Prometheus Courage classics 1831 Print.
In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley scrutinizes the Enlightenment era’s pursuit for progress and knowledge as it is seen as morally chaotic for overstepping the natural order idealised by the Romantics. Victor F’Stein’s amibition to overpower the boundaries of nature by attempting to take up God’s role as the creator is enunciated in the metaphor “many excellent natures should owe their being to me”. Victor’s hubris and ambition reflects aspects of the Enlightenment – Shelley criticises the attempts of the age to control and empower natural processes, embodied in Galvani’s experimentation with animal electricity. Victor F’Stein represents humanity’s hubristic ambitions and fondness of knowledge. Shelley uses intertextual reference by characterising F’Stein as the “Modern Day Prometheus”. In Greek Mythology, Prometheus usurped the natural order by the creation of man. Prometheus was punished for for this crime eternally – an eagle eating from his liver; the implications are that nature is having its revenge for upsetting hierarchal order. However, Vi...
Shelley, Mary "Frankenstein". The Presence of Others. Comp Andrea A. Lunsford and John J. Ruskiewicz. New York: St. Martins, 1997 230-235.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ed. J. Paul Hunter. New York: W. W. Norton & Co, 1996.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, explores the monstrous and destructive affects of obsession, guilt, fate, and man’s attempt to control nature. Victor Frankenstein, the novel’s protagonist and antihero, attempts to transcend the barriers of scientific knowledge and application in creating a life. His determination in bringing to life a dead body consequently renders him ill, both mentally and physically. His endeavors alone consume all his time and effort until he becomes fixated on his success. The reason for his success is perhaps to be considered the greatest scientist ever known, but in his obsessive toil, he loses sight of the ethical motivation of science. His production would ultimately grieve him throughout his life, and the consequences of his undertaking would prove disastrous and deadly. Frankenstein illustrates the creation of a monster both literally and figuratively, and sheds light on the dangers of man’s desire to play God.
Victor Frankenstein from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is the embodiment of the Greek titan, Prometheus. Victor is controlled by his desire for results but he ignores his path to getting those results. It’s helpful that he is able to ignore reality when doing so because then he is able to focus more on the developments. Being on the selfish side, Victor Frankenstein never bothers with the questions such as “Why” but focuses on the “Why not”. Victor Frankenstein is the modern Prometheus because of his realization when reality does not match what he imagined, brute strength to compensate for his ignorance and constant reluctant to take responsibility for his actions.
Works Cited Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein: A Norton Critical Edition. ed. J. Paul Hunter. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein: A Norton Critical Edition. Ed. J. Paul Hunter. New York: W. W.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus. The 1818 Text. New York: Oxford UP, 1998.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus. Edited with an Introduction and notes by Maurice Hindle. Penguin books, 1992
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, Walter James Miller, and Harold Bloom. Frankenstein, Or, The Modern Prometheus. New York: New American Library, 2000. Print.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ed. D.L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf. Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press, 1999.
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Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus. Edited with an Introduction and notes by Maurice Hindle. Penguin books, 1992
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus. Edited with an Introduction and notes by Maurice Hindle. Penguin books, 1992
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein (sometimes also known as The Modern Prometheus) is the classic gothic novel of her time. In this eerie tale, Dr. Victor Frankenstein – suffering from quite an extreme superiority complex – brings to life a creature made from body parts of deceased individuals from nearby cemeteries. Rather than to embrace the Creature as his own, Frankenstein alienates him because of his unpleasant appearance. Throughout the novel, the Creature is ostracized not only by Frankenstein but by society as a whole. Initially a kind and gentle being, the Creature becomes violent and eventually seeks revenge for his creator’s betrayal. Rather than to merely focus on the exclusion of the Creature from society, Shelley depicts the progression of Dr. Frankenstein’s seclusion from other humans as well, until he and the Creature ultimately become equals – alone in the world with no one to love, and no one to love them back. Frankenstein serves as more than simply a legendary tale of horror, but also as a representation of how isolation and prejudice can result in the demise of the individual.