Mary Shelley 's ' Frankenstein '

While Mary Shelley’s best seller, Frankenstein may address many biblical allusions in the portrayal of its theme, the work contains a Christ figure which adds dimension and meaning to the story as a whole. Many aspects of this character tie into the biblical references throughout the story to create a cohesive theme. Overall, the novel is about loss of innocence, corruption, and death. By drawing parallels between the creation story, Satan’s fall from Heaven, Jesus’s forty days in the desert, the crucifixion and the resurrection, Mary Shelley creates representations for corruption, death, and pain. Quotes, characters, settings, and events all contributed to the mood, tone, and theme, and these factors work together to outline the frame for Victor Frankenstein, the Christ figure of the novel. Victor’s family and friends strongly resemble those of Jesus; the concept of the holy trinity can be drawn from events throughout the book, and the timeline of Jesus’s life is frequently alluded to. Overall, these parts of the novel complete the theme through the creation of a Christ figure and make the vision of this story applicable to life in the real world.

Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein" narrates a story about a scientist, Victor Frankenstein, and his creation of a monster set apart from all worldly creatures. Frankenstein's creation parallels Milton's "Paradise Lost" and God's creation of man; Victor Frankenstein is symbolic of God and the monster is symbolic of Adam. The parallel emphasizes the moral limitations of mankind through Victor Frankenstein and the disjunction and correlation with "Paradise Lost". Shelly links the two stories together through Victor's creation of the monster and his "fall" from humanity which I will focus on initially. More importantly, the main divergence of the two works lies in the representation of God in "Paradise Lost" and Victor in "Frankenstein". Both the

Mary Bysshe Shelley, the writer of Frankenstein, used lots of different Allusions to common text from the time to help readers understand relationships between Victor and his creature as well as Victor’s motivation for creating the creature. Shelley uses allusions to Paradise Lost to help the reader understand the relationship between Victor Frankenstein and his creature. Paradise Lost discusses the relationship between God and Adam as well as Satan and God and how he treats them as their creator. The relationship between the creature and Frankenstein can be described as a mix between the 2 relationships discussed in Paradise Lost. The creature sees himself as Adam because he was created in his creator’s own image and made to be a creation of man.

In this passage, the monster creates a link between “Paradise Lost”, a book he has read, and the life he is leading now. The title of the book is strongly connoted as it alludes to the original sin in the bible, when Adam and Eve are thrown out of Paradise for eating an apple from the forbidden tree after having succumbed to Satan. The religious reference used by Mary Shelly enables the author to amplify the idea that the loss of innocence and destruction is a theme that is recurrent in every period of time. This reference offers an anthropologic analysis on how men inevitably destroy their innocence and purity. Throughout this passage, an intrinsic bond can be detected between Adam and the monster and between God and Frankenstein.

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

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.

In the Gothic novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley integrates the rhetorical devices figurative language, imagery, and tone to impart the concept that the desire to acquire knowledge and emulate God will ultimately result in chaos and havoc that exceeds the boundaries of human restraint.

The “creatures” are birthed with very few opportunities for companionship and lack guidance, causing them to make reckless decisions that impact those around them. In Milton’s poem, after falling for the deceit of Satan, Eve’s decisions affect Adam, a fellow creation of God, and force the banishment from paradise for both of them. On the other hand, in Shelley’s novel, after the creation of his monster, Victor Frankenstein becomes mentally ill and lives in constant fear of coming in contact with the resurrected being. Overall, in both Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and John Milton’s Paradise Lost the authors convey their similar interpretations of creation and depict the complications following the

     Even upon first glance, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and John Milton's Paradise Lost seem to have a complex relationship, which is discernible only in fractions at a time.  Frankenstein is Mary Shelley's reaction to John Milton's epic poem, in which he wrote the Creation myth as we perceive it today.  His characterizations of Adam and Eve and the interactions of Satan and God and the impending Fall seem to have almost taken a Biblical proportion by themselves.  By the time that Mary Shelley read Paradise Lost, it was indeed a stalwart in the canon of English Literature, so it should not come as a surprise to the reader the it should play such a large part in her construction of

By observing Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, it is shown that the monster is predominantly miss conceptualized as possessing a character that is entirely evil; but rather was placed in circumstances through his creation, interactions with society and his relationship with his creator that evicted

In the nineteenth century gothic novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley uses numerous allusions within her novel that can easily be interpreted by the reader. These allusions make it easier for readers to understand the characters and compare their circumstances throughout the story. The most significant and most used was from John Milton’s epic Paradise Lost. It is known that, “…Paradise Lost stands alone in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries atop the literary hierarchy, and Milton’s epic is clearly rooted in the history of Puritanism and in the bourgeois ideal of the individual, the ‘concept of the person as a relatively autonomous self-contained and distinctive universe’” (Lamb 305). This book has numerous parallels that readers can easily interpret to Frankenstein. Victor Frankenstein and his monster can both be identified with several characters from Paradise Lost. Among these characters are Adam, Eve, Satan, and God. Paradise Lost is even mentioned in the novel, after the monster that Victor creates reads the epic as if it was a history book. The Creature states, “But Paradise Lost excited different and far deeper emotions. I read it, as I had read the other volumes which had fallen into my hands, as a true history. It moved every feeling of wonder and awe that the picture of an omnipotent God warring with his creatures was capable of exciting” (Shelley 124). He is able

The book Frankenstein is one of the most passionate novels ever written. Mary Shelley’s incredible ability to portray grief and suffering at such a young age and in such a vivid way is ineffable. However, in the review of the Knight’s Quarterly Review, Shelley’s classic work is attacked in its content and character.

In Frankenstein, A perfect marriage and family are idealistic and dreamt upon, but are not seen as realistic or possible. Things such as scientific literature, new philosophy, and scientific breakthroughs were highly respected. In addition, literary classics such as Milton's Paradise Lost act as a guide for the morals and actions of the characters. For example, Victor Frankenstein's creature often relates himself to the Romantic's view of Satan(an abused creation), while relating his creator to God, who cast him away. Victor Frankenstein is often bothered by his consciences, preventing him to feel right or wrong.

In the introduction to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein, which was originally published anonymously in 1818 and which over the intervening years (thanks partly to a series of low-comedy theatrical adaptations) had become a bestseller, Mary Shelley offered a persuasive and romantic explanation of how her book came to be written. The account of where and how Mary Shelley’s novel originated may be among the most famous creation stories in literature; we know, or think we know, the circumstances and the pressures under which a very young woman turned a sort of parlor game into a book that would long outlive her.

The connection between Frankenstein in paradise lost elevates the story emphasizing doing the forbidden and the consequences that come with it. As the monster interacted more with humans he said, “Increase of knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was. (Shelley 119)” Victor created his monster and released him into the real world, but it wasn't soon until his “Paradise” was lost and he realized he didn't fit in. The monster was loathing on the idea that he was abandoned by Victor when he says, “ I remembered Adam’s supplication to his Creator.