Beating At The Heart Of Paradise Lost Lies A Common Theme

Some have called Milton 's God 'evil ' and 'unloving ' such as Richard Bentley (Read). This criticism can be attributed to the fact that Milton was cautious about creating a so-called round character of God; this caution caused this flat creator that has no real stake in creation. When the first words that God speaks in Paradise Lost mock the fallen angels: " Only begotten Son, seest thou what rage/ Transports our adversary " (Milton III . 80 ) it only confirms the fate that this character cannot be the hero of the story. By doing this Milton created this malicious creator which inspired the cruelty that can clearly be seen in Victor Frankenstein in terms of both his family and his creation. The use of cruelty in creators, whether intentional or not determines the environment in which their creation lives.

In Milton's epic, God is represented as omnipotent; Victor Frankenstein does not have this ability, a human moral limitation brought out through the juxtapositions of the texts. In "Paradise Lost", God is described as "the Omnipotent Eternal Father" (188), and knows that men will fall and explains to Jesus what will occur. On the other hand, Victor is not omnipotent and cannot see what will become of his creation. The monster even mentions God's omnipotence in his narration to his creator about his reading of "Paradise Lost", "It moved every feeling of wonder and awe, that the picture of an omnipotent God warring with his creatures was capable of exciting" (74). Conversely, Victor's story to Walton about his years spent working on the creature do not include

One responsibility of a creator is to take responsibility of their creation, instead of abandoning it, they should nurture it. The creator should love their creation despite anything because it is something they created and their minds are still innocent; the creation just wants attention and to be loved. After Victor created his creation, he referred to him as a hideous monster because of how he looked. The creation in Shelley’s story emphasizes the loneliness of growing up feeling “miserable and abandoned,” (Shelley 165), and how Victor’s job as a creator was not carried out.

Victor, the protagonist, is a Byronic hero who voluntarily isolates himself from society as his obsession of creating a new life-being becomes his main interest. He cuts himself off from all human contact and concentrates on his scientific experiment as he wishes his “thirst for knowledge” (Shelley 38) to be stilled. Additionally, he hides a dark secret inside him, namely the creation of the monster which he irresponsibly abandons and ultimately is forced to accept the consequences of death of his loved ones.

Mary Shelley makes us question who really the “monster” is. Is it the creature or Victor? While the creature does commit murder, he does not understand the consequences of his actions. He is like an infant who is unfortunately left to learn about the workings of society, and his place in it, on his own. He has no companions and feels a great sense of loneliness and abandonment. The creature voices his frustration and anger and seems to try to project his feelings of guilt onto Victor, as if to show him that he is the ultimate cause of the creature’s misery while he is simply the victim of Victor’s manic impulse. Shelley utilizes words, phrases, and specific tones when the creature vents his misery to Victor and this evokes, amongst the

In the gothic novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley weaves an intricate web of allusions through her characters’ expedient desires for knowledge. Both the actions of Frankenstein, as well as his monster allude to John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Book eight of Milton’s story relates the tale of Satan’s temptation and Eve’s fateful hunger for knowledge. The infamous Fall of Adam and Eve introduced the knowledge of good and evil into a previously pristine world. With one swift motion sin was birthed, and the perfection of the earth was swept away, leaving pain and malevolence in its wake. The troubles of Victor Frankenstein begin with his quest for knowledge, and end where all end: death. The characters in Frankenstein are a conglomeration of those

The allusion to Dante implies that, based on appearance alone, the monster is more evil than Hell itself. Victor took no time in getting to understand the monster or develop the familial bond between them, which leaves Victor with a narrow, biased opinion on the monster. Shelley uses Victor’s hasty judgment of the monster in order to demonstrate the irrationality of Victor’s actions regarding the creature. This also discounts Victor’s opinions of the monster, forcing Shelley’s audience to judge the monster based on their own inferences, rather than Victor’s. Through Victor’s actions and his faulty reasoning behind them, Shelley is able to shift the responsibility for the monster’s character from it being instilled in him from birth, to Victor’s failings as a parent and creator.

In the gothic novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley weaves an intricate web of allusions through her characters’ expedient desires for knowledge. Both the actions of Frankenstein, as well as his monster allude to John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Book eight of Milton’s story relates the tale of Satan’s temptation and Eve’s fateful hunger for knowledge. The infamous Fall of Adam and Eve introduced the knowledge of good and evil into a previously pristine world.

Victor wants to create life to feel like a god but ultimately realizes that humans beings can not be god. The monster grapples with the fact that he wants to be like Adam but ends up like Lucifer. This essay will prove that man should not play god because man is unfit to play god. God is an all knowing being that knows more than use. It will also prove that the Creature through his struggles of trying to be loved, he will only end up being hated even more.

Shelley explains how Victor has a great mental turmoil after he indirectly caused the death of people who were close to him by the actions he took to create the monster. Shelley’s description of Victor’s feelings show the deprivation of hope and fear in his soul and the emphasises the pain in which he was indirectly the cause of. Victor not only caused his own mental illness, but he also caused his own physical illness. Victor makes himself physically sick by his actions during the creation of his monster. Victor’s work unintentionally causes himself to decline in health and become vulnerable to illnesses. “When Victor is working on his experiment, he cannot love: he ignores his family, even his fiance Elizabeth, and takes no pleasure in the beauties of nature. Moreover, he becomes physically… ill, subject to nervous fevers”(Weiner 83). Victor is shown to focus directly on his work, causing him to forget most of the outside world and not be influenced by forces that usually comfort and heal him. His work makes Victor subject to nervous fevers, causing himself to become sick more often and need help from family and friends more often. Although the process of creating the monster was physically taxing on Victor, the end product caused him even more pain. The creation of the creature impaired

Victor had an obligation to care for his creation, but chooses at first glance of his construction to abscond from its presence. The comparison of Victor as God-like highlights Enlightenment philosophers who have gone beyond the limits of humanity in order to attain knowledge. Victor is characterized then as a savant manipulating nature. The Creature acts as a balance for philosophers to stop and reflect upon their own enterprise and determine the fine line between acceptable and unacceptable knowledge as it pertains to nature. To this end, Shelley enforces that humanity must pay due respect to the limits placed in front of them by avoiding the Enlightenment philosophy that man is to find a definite definition for every phenomenon he encounters.

Taking God’s role into your own hands proves too much for someone to take on and Victor could not escape the negative repercussions of his actions. Victor Frankenstein is the protagonist in the 1831 novel Frankenstein. Victor unnaturally creates a monster from the bodies of the deceased. This creation would haunt and torture him for the rest of his life. Victor Frankenstein foolishly assumed that he could take the role of God into his own hands and create life from death. Victor shows the negative effects of playing God through Victor’s mental state, his negligence of the creature, and the behavior of the creature.

So, Milton’s theodicy in his epic poem, Paradise Lost, brings up the question of free will, along with asserting God as being all powerful and good. Milton wanted to show that God is not responsible for the fall of humans as he gave man all the necessary tools to resist evil in this epic poem. Paradise Lost, though, is perhaps the most famous epic poem ever written. Milton believed himself to be truly special in God’s eye, which is probably why he wanted to show God’s innocence in the fall of humanity. John Milton is truly one of the greatest and most influential writers in the history of the

John Milton's theodicy in Paradise Lost is an attempt to justify the ways of God to men. Many ask how God could let someone as innocent as a child die in a horrible way. How could a God that is all loving and all powerful let something like that happen? He answers this using the fall of Mankind as the trigger point. Cordelia Zukerman and Thomas H. Luxon, "The dominance of these themes comes from the fact that Milton is writing about the first humans on earth, humans who have no history and no way of knowing the world except through God's inspiration." (Zukerman, Luxon). He explains by utilizing three parts as his structure: Before humans, during Eden and after the Fall. Thus the explanation in this essay will be two-fold; the first section dedicated a summary of previously stated three points and the second section a critique of said theodicy.