Frankenstein:
The Modern Prometheus
Preface
Mary Shelley subtitled
her novel "The Modern Prometheus." According to the Greeks, Prometheus
stole fire from the gods. As punishment, he was chained to a rock, where
an eagle each day plucked at his liver. Haughty Prometheus sought fire
for human betterment--to make tools and warm hearts. Similarly, Mary Shelley's
arrogant scientist, Victor Frankenstein, claimed "benevolent intentions,
and thirsted for the moment when I should put them in practice." Frankenstein
endures not only because of its infamous horrors but for the richness of
the ideas it asks us to confront--human accountability, social alienation,
and the nature of life itself. These passages illuminate some of them.
Paradise
Lost
Did I request
thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me
man? Did I solicit thee
From darkness
to promote me?
Lines
from John Milton's Paradise Lost
From the title
page of Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheuse, 1818
In Frankenstein,
the intelligent and sensitive monster created by Victor Frankenstein reads
a copy of Milton's Paradise Lost, which profoundly stirs his emotions.
The monster compares his situation to that of Adam. Unlike the first man
who had "come forth from the hands of God a perfect creature," Frankenstein's
creature is hideously formed. Abandoned by Victor Frankenstein, the monster
finds himself "wretched, helpless, and alone."
Surrounded
by Ice
A sledge . . .
had drifted towards us in the night, on a large fragment of ice. Only one
dog remained alive; but there was a human being within it. . . . His limbs
were nearly frozen, and his body dreadfully emaciated by fatigue and suffering.
I never saw a man in so wretched a condition.
Robert
Walton to his sister Mrs. Saville
Frankenstein;
or, The Modern Prometheuse, 1818
Frankenstein opens
with a series of letters written by Arctic explorer Robert Walton, engaged
in a personal quest to expand the boundaries of the known world. It is
Walton who first encounters Victor Frankenstein in the Arctic desperately
searching for the monster he has created. The explorer becomes the only
person to hear Victor Frankenstein's strange and tragic tale.
The
Spark of Life
I beheld a stream
of fire issue from an old and beautiful oak . . . and so soon as the dazzling
light vanished the oak had disappeared, and nothing remained but a blasted
stump. . . . I eagerly inquired of my father the nature and origin of thunder
and lightning. He replied, "Electricity."
Victor
Frankenstein to Robert Walton
Frankenstein;
or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818
In Mary Shelley's
day, many people regarded the new science of electricity with both wonder
and astonishment. In Frankenstein, Shelley used both the new sciences of
chemistry and electricity and the older Renaissance tradition of the alchemists'
search for the elixir of life to conjure up the Promethean possibility
of reanimating the bodies of the dead.
Unveiling
the Recesses of Nature
The modern masters
promise very little. . . . but these philosophers. . . have indeed performed
miracles. . . . They have discovered how the blood circulates, and the
nature of the air we breathe. They have acquired new and almost unlimited
powers; they can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake,
and even mock the invisible world with its own shadows.
Professor
Waldman to his class at the University of Ingolstadt
Frankenstein;
or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818
By the early nineteenth
century, philosophers like physician Erasmus Darwin and chemist Humphry
Davy, both well known to Mary Shelley, pointed the way to mastery of the
physical universe. Discoveries about the human body and the natural world
promised the dawn of a new age of medical power, when such things as reanimation
of dead tissue and the end of death and disease seemed within reach.
Midnight
Labors
Who shall conceive
the horrors of my secret toil, as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps
of the grave, or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay?
Victor
Frankenstein
Frankenstein;
or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818
With feverish
excitement, Victor Frankenstein pursues nature to her hiding places. By
moonlight, he gathers the body parts he needs by visits to the graveyard,
to the charnel house, to the hospital dissecting room and the slaughterhouse.
Although he finds his solitary preoccupation repulsive, he is not deterred
from his quest to restore life.
Hideous
Progeny
I collected the
instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into
the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. . . . His yellow skin scarcely
covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous
black, and flowing . . . [it] formed a more horrid contrast with his watery
eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in
which they were set, his shrivelled complexion, and straight black lips.
Victor
Frankenstein
Frankenstein;
or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818
Overcome by the
horror of what he has done, Victor Frankenstein abandons the "miserable
monster" he fathered in his laboratory. That evening a nightmare disturbs
his sleep; Elizabeth, his fiancée, becomes in his arms the decaying
corpse of his own dead mother. The next morning when he returns to his
"workshop of filthy creation," the monster has escaped.
Poor,
Helpless, Miserable Wretch
But where were
my friends and relations? No father had watched my infant days, no mother
had blessed me with smiles and caresses; or if they had, all my past life
was now a blot, a blind vacancy in which I distinguished nothing. From
my earliest remembrance I had been as I then was in height and proportion.
I had never yet seen a being resembling me. . . . What was I?
The
Monster
Frankenstein;
or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818
Mary Shelley gave
her monster feelings and intelligence. Fatherless and motherless, the monster
struggles to find his place in human society, struggles with the most fundamental
questions of identity and personal history. Alone, he learns to speak,
to read, and to ponder "his accursed origins." All the while, he suffers
from the loneliness of never seeing anyone resembling himself.
Remaining
Silent
I paused when
I reflected on the story I had to tell. A being whom I myself had formed,
and endued with life, had met me at midnight among the precipes. . . .
I well knew that if any other had communicated such a relation to me, I
should have looked upon it as the ravings of insanity. Besides, the strange
nature of the animal would elude all pursuit, even if I were so far credited
as to persuade my relatives to commence it. . . . I resolved to remain
silent.
Victor
Frankenstein
Frankenstein;
or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818
Abandoned by his
creator, the monster takes his revenge on Victor Frankenstein by killing
his younger brother, William. Frankenstein's silence, in the face of the
monster's murderous actions, exacts a terrible price. His self-imposed
isolation from society mirrors the social isolation the monster experiences
from all who see him. Frankenstein's decision to remain silent about the
monster leads to further tragedy.
A
Monstrous Mate
I demand a creature
of another sex, but as hideous as myself. . . . It is true, we shall be
monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more
attached to one another. Our lives will not be happy, but they will be
harmless, and free from the misery I now feel. Oh! my creator, make me
happy; let me feel gratitude toward you for one benefit! Let me see that
I excite the sympathy of some existing thing; do not deny me my request!
The
Monster to Victor Frankenstein
Frankenstein;
or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818
Victor Frankenstein
initially agrees to create a mate for his monster. But as Frankenstein
begins to assemble an Eve for his Adam, he grows terrified by the prospect
that this female creature will be "ten thousand times more malignant" than
her companion, and that the two might themselves produce "a race of devils."
Breaking his promise to the monster, Frankenstein disposes of the body
parts he gathered to produce the female creature. Inflamed with hatred,
the monster sets outs to destroy in Frankenstein's life all that he coveted
for his own. After killing Clerval, Frankenstein's best friend, the monster
murders Elizabeth, Frankenstein's bride, on their wedding night.
The
Greatness of His Fall
The forms of the
beloved death flit before me, and I hasten to their arms. Farewell, Walton!
Seek happiness in tranquility, and avoid ambition, even if it be only the
apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries.
Yet why do I say this? I have myself been blasted in these hopes, yet another
may succeed.
Victor
Frankenstein to explorer Robert Walton
Frankenstein;
or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818
As he lies dying
aboard Walton's ship, Frankenstein offers an ambivalent assessment of his
own conduct. In both the subtitle (The Modern Prometheus) of her novel
and through Frankenstein's dying words, Mary Shelley suggests that Frankenstein's
misfortune did not arise from his Promethean ambition of creating life,
but in the mistreatment of his creature. Frankenstein's failure to assume
responsibility for the miserable wretch he fathered in his workshop is
his real tragedy.
Monstrous
Remorse
Once I falsely
hoped to meet with beings, who, pardoning my outward form, would love me
for the excellent qualities which I was capable of bringing forth. I was
nourished with high thoughts of honour and devotion. But now vice has degraded
me beneath the meanest animal. . . . the fallen angel becomes a malignant
devil. . . . I am quite alone.
The
Monster to explorer Robert Walton
Frankenstein;
or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818
Encountering Robert
Walton aboard his ship, the monster expresses overwhelming remorse for
his frightful catalogue of misdeeds, the deaths of William, Clerval, Elizabeth,
and his creator. The creature informs the explorer that he will destroy
himself in the frozen north, and disappears in the icy waves. The tragedy
of Frankenstein and his monster is complete.
U.S.
National Library of Medicine (NLM)
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/
Last
updated: 28 January 1998
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Universitat de València
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