Mary Shelleys Frankenstein and Satanic-Promethean Ideals Essay

bloody shame Shelleys Frankenstein and friction matchic-Promethean Ideals Mary Shelleys Frankenstein is a sweet in conscious dialogue with approved classics and contemporary works. It contains references to Coleridge, Wordsworth, and P. B. Shelley, but excessively to Cervantes and Milton. It is the latters Paradise Lost which informs the themes and structure of the novel more than any other source. Like many of her contemporaries, Mary Shelley draws parallels betwixt Miltons Satan and the Titan Prometheus of Greek myth. However, the two are not plainly equated (as in Byrons poem, Prometheus), but appear in various facets through two Victor Frankenstein and his creation. Furthermore, God, Zeus, and Adam are also evoked through these characters. though its treatment of these mythical figures identifies it with Romantic Satanism,11 Frankenstein reaches a moral conclusion at odds with the ideals of Shelleys contemporaries, and far closer to those of Milton. The nov els utility(a) title is The Modern Prometheus. It squirt be asked who in the story is supposed to be Promethean. Since this title is the alternative to Frankenstein, it seems obvious that the doctor is meant, although it allow be shown later that the monster also bears significant similarities to the Titan. According to the Greek myth, Prometheus (whose name means forethought), against the will of Zeus, stole fire from the gods and gave it to humans. With fire came the beginning of a crafts and civilisation itself. In this respect, Victor Frankensteins quest for knowledge is Promethean, as is his belief that his researches will reach humanity. The other consequence of the theft of fire is that it in... ... knowledge, causing their fall from a happy innocent existence. 44 It must be made clear that this is a Christian myth. In Judaism, Satan is as much a handmaid of God as any other angel, it being his peculiar billet to test humans and record their failures. Without understanding this, the story of Job loses its meaning-God sends Satan to test Job. The Jewish Satan has no relation to the serpent of the enlightenment story. The equivocation is Christian. Christianitys devil and its stark good vs. evil cosmic warfare derive from Zoroastrianism, not Judaism, plainly as its doctrine of the immortal intelligence derives from Platonism. There is no good vs. evil in Judaism, there is just God, and immortality is the privilege of God and the angels, not humans. 55 This phrase is borrowed from Friedrich Nietzsche, vide Genealogy of Morals, Beyond true(p) and Evil, and The Antichrist.