Cultural Values In Prometheus And Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

   Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein, sheds light on the importance of appearance through the tale of an unwanted creation that is never given a chance by society. Ironically, the supposed beast was initially much more compassionate and thoughtful than his creator, until his romantic and innocent view of the human race was diminished by the cruelty and injustice he unduly bore. Not only does the creature suffer the prejudice of an appearance-based society, but other situations and characters in the novel force the reader to reflect their own hasty judgment. The semi- gothic novel includes several instances of societal prejudice that include the isolation and outcast of Frankenstein's creation,

What do a god and a crazy doctor have in common? Nothing right! Wrong! In the stories Prometheus and Frankenstein the protagonists are very alike in many ways. They both tried to play god, steal, and they both get punished for what they did.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is subtitled "The Modern Prometheus", and rightfully so. Prometheus, the Titan of Greek mythology that created man and gave them fire, is a fitting symbol for Victor Frankenstein, the man who created a "monster" and gave him life. The most obvious aspect of the similarity between Frankenstein and the Prometheus myth is the underlying theme - both stories deal with ill-fated actions with tragic consequences. The classic Prometheus stories, as told by Aeschylus, Percy Bysshe Shelley and summarized by Edith Hamilton, contain symbolic and thematic elements that closely parallel Mary Shelley's "modern Prometheus."

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein as a modern day version of the legend of Prometheus. Prometheus created men out of clay and taught them the "arts of civilisation" (Webster's World Encyclopedia CD-ROM 1999). Zeus, the chief god of the Titans, wanted to destroy Prometheus' creation but Prometheus stole fire from heaven to help mankind. Zeus punished Prometheus by chaining him to a rock where an eagle would feed on his liver during the day and each night the liver would grow back. Prometheus was able to bargain for his release because he knew a secret which concerned Zeus' future. Heracles shot the eagle and so Prometheus gained release. Victor Frankenstein is Shelley's modern Prometheus in that

The story of Pandora is one that shows how men found themselves superior and blamed women for the problems of the world. In the story Prometheus offered Zeus something that looked good but was bad on the inside. In return Zeus offered him something that looked good on the outside but was filled with lies, swindles, and other bad behaviors (Powell 115). To make a long story short, Pandora opened the jar and made the good life turn into labor, misery, and disease, with death in the end. I think that this showed that the Greco-Roman society blamed women for all of their problems. I think that this is different than the women's role in today's society. I think that men are blamed more for the problems of today. Even though you and I both know they're mostly the fault of women.

MJ DeMarco, author and entrepreneur, related choices in life to hitting a golf ball. If the club is rotated even a fraction of a degree when it hits the ball, the ball has a trajectory that diverges further away from the golf course until it is nearly impossible to get back on track. (Pros) At first the change is hardly noticeable, but later its consequences are so devastating that its new course is completely transformed from the course it used to be on. (Pros) Like this situation, DeMarco says that one bad choice can set one’s trajectory off by only one fraction of a degree today, but in the future the error is magnified and has monumental consequences. (Pros) What appears to be a good choice, ends up being a bad choice in the end. This idea connects to two of the main themes in Frankenstein or A Modern Prometheus: the dangerous pursuit of knowledge and fate versus free will. The choice to pursue knowledge may be appealing, but it has life threatening consequences, like fate for instance. In Frankenstein or A Modern Prometheus, Mary Shelley uses the motif of light to illuminate and connect the themes of fate vs. free will and the dangers of the pursuit of knowledge.

Shelley’s Romantic novel Frankenstein (1818) compares and reflects values of humanity and the consequences of our Promethean ambition against the futuristic, industrialized world of Blade Runner (1992) by Ridley Scott. The notions of unbridled scientific advancement and technological progress resonate with our desire to elevate humanity’s state of being, mirrored amongst the destructive ambition to overtake and disrupt nature and its processes. The disastrous implications of overreaching the boundary between progressive and destructive power and knowledge are heeded through the ultimate and inevitable loss of self and identity, transforming humanity into a form of monstrosity.

The foil is a person or thing whose traits, by differences and similarities, help to emphasize and enhances the qualities and actions of the protagonist. Many characters, such as Elizabeth Lavenza, Henry Clerval, Robert Walton and Frankenstein’s creature, in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Or, The Modern Prometheus qualify as foils for Victor Frankenstein, the protagonist. However, Frankenstein’s creature is the most effective foil for Victor Frankenstein. The creature’s similarities and differences with Frankenstein along with his actions and traits allow him to be a more effective foil than Walton, and contributes to the meaning and structure of the novel.

In doing so, Frankenstein condemns the creature to loneliness and persecution. The creature's hatred and violent acts are not an inherent part of his character, as he explains, "I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous" (81). If Frankenstein had raised and cared for him, the creature would have experienced compassion, and had someone to support him and be his advocate. Instead, the creature is left to learn about the world on his own, and develop a set of morals based on the way society treats him. Because he grows up outside of, and shunned by, society, he feels very little moral obligation towards other human beings. "...and tell me why should I pity man more than he pities me?" the creature asks Frankenstein. "Shall I respect man when he contemns [sic] me?" (122) The creature is not a monster in his own eyes; he is behaving rationally given the treatment he has received. If he were taught a better way to act, he would almost certainly behave in that way. The monster is not born a monster, his ugliness notwithstanding; he becomes one because society behaves monstrously towards him.

Over two centuries ago, Mary Shelley created a gruesome tale of the horrific ramifications that result when man over steps his bounds and manipulates nature. In her classic tale, Frankenstein, Shelley weaves together the terrifying implications of a young scientist playing God and creating life, only to be haunted for the duration of his life by the monster of his own sordid creation. Reading Shelley in the context of present technologically advanced times, her tale of monstrous creation provides a very gruesome caution. For today, it is not merely a human being the sciences are lusting blindly to bring to life, as was the deranged quest of Victor Frankenstein, but rather to

 "What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?" This question, posed by Captain Robert Walton on page 22 of Mary Shelley's immortal Frankenstein, lies susceptible to interpretation to mean the ambition of man in one sense, but in another, the collective persecution and prejudice inherent in mankind.

    The creature's ambiguous humanity has long puzzled readers of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. In this essay I will focus on how Frankenstein can be used to explore two philosophical topics, social contract theory, and gender roles, in light of ideas from Shelley's two philosophical parents, William Godwin, and Mary Wollstonecraft.

This represents a rebellion against the social norms and customs, something that the 19th-century writers and readers never thought feasible until the Romantic’s break away from Enlightenment ideals. This parallelism in breaking away from social norms and society's backlash in doing so is further personified in the creature’s lack of understanding of why he’s hated. He means well and wants affection, but every single encounter he has with anyone is that of disgusted rejection. The significance of the hatred he receives by pretty much everyone is that it points out society’s own hypocrisy in this facade of “acceptance”. Shelley’s time hailed itself as being revolutionary and the Romantics called themselves accepting of all but social values don’t change that fast, deep down, they still wanted the status quo of everything being ordinary. Furthermore the creature itself is a rebellion to social to norms since he isn't brought to life normally and is instead summoned with science. So the people’s rejection of the creature, is therefore, a rejection of science itself since he is the embodiment of Frankenstein’s pursuit of science. What this goes to show in Shelley’s eyes

In Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” she provides the readers a subtitle “The Modern Prometheus,” in order to show the allusion she has drawn between Victor Frankenstein and the Titan god Prometheus throughout the novel. Prometheus was one of the few Titan gods that sided with Zeus during the war to take control and wasn’t banished to Tartarus. He became the god of forethought and crafty counsel who was given the task to create and protect mankind. Because of a trick played upon Zeus at Mecone, Zeus became infuriated and took fire from the humans as punishment. As the protector of mankind, Prometheus stole the fire from Zeus and gave it back to the humans, subsequently he caused the creation of Pandora, the first woman, and all the evils to be

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has become a classic in modern literature. Her tale is full of moral lessons that encompass a wide variety of subjects but one of the most prevalent is the theme of knowledge and its pursuit. Frankenstein, Walton, and the Monster all have an appetite for acquiring knowledge and actively pursue their perspective interests, but it soon turns to the obsessive and proves to be dangerous. Each of the character’s desires demonstrates to be detrimental to them when no boundaries are established. Through the use of consequences, Shelley’s Frankenstein shows that the relentless and obsessive pursuit of knowledge can lead to dangerous and disastrous situations.