Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: A Modern Prometheus

Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein: A Modern Prometheus has played a huge role in pop culture since it was published in 1818. From movies, numerous plays, and allusions in other works of art, many people have fallen in love with the story. What some people might not know is that the story was made like a spider web from a combination of ideas and influences that Shelley then weaved to create this story. Even though the novel is about a mad scientist who brings back the dead, one of the inspirations for Shelley was the Greek myth of Prometheus. In fact, Shelley had basically retold the story of Prometheus in a more modern way with a zing horror to grab the reader’s attention and to express her feelings about what was going on during the Age of Enlightenment era. According to Dictionary.com, the Age of Enlightenment was a time when scientists and great thinkers began to use a “scientific approach to religious, social, political, and economical issues”. This, of course, had affected Shelley when she wrote the novel. As the article “Her Midnight Pillow”: Mary Shelley and the Creation of Frankenstein” (Biography.com) explains, Shelley apparently had a nightmare one night after she and her friends had chatted about various topics including all of the scientific advances and findings of that time. One of the odd advances that article says the group had talked about included galvanism. A scientist named Luigi Galvani had shocked a dead frog’s leg which proved that living beings have a type of electricity that flows from their brain that sends messages to the person’s limbs, causing the person to move. During this time, there were many doctors who were expanding their knowledge of human anatomy by dissecting cadavers, which became a very popular study method. As if that was not creepy enough, in order to learn some doctors actually studied the bodies of those who had come from the grave. What some people might not know is that the myth of Prometheus Shelley and her husband both loved had also shaped her novel. Victor, the main character of Frankenstein: A Modern Prometheus, was intended to have represented Prometheus. However, most readers don’t realize how much the two characters are alike. Instead of clay and water like Prometheus had used to create …show more content…
In the article “Frankenstein: 10 Possible Meanings” by Tom Geoghegan, he explains that one belief is that Shelley is addressing the new sciences of the time and that what she was trying to convey to her readers was “don’t play god.” For this reason, Shelley used the myth of Prometheus as the backbone of her novel. In the story of Prometheus, Zeus punishes him for creating humans. Instead of God punishing Victor, it is actually the monster that tortures him by even existing. As many online articles have pointed out, Shelley had written the monster to behave in such a way that was uncanny to the actions of the eagle that picked at Prometheus’ liver each day. In the plot line of the novel, after the monster was created, he runs off and Victor has no idea where he went or what he was capable of. Then throughout the novel, the monster kills Victor’s beloved friends and family members methodically, usually in anger. By the monster doing this, a little bit of Victor’s mind chips away each time and causes him to physically become