Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus is a Gothic novel that tells the tale of Victor Frankenstein and his creation. As seen in other Gothic works, Shelley employs the supernatural as her character of Dr. Frankenstein creates a monster made out of the leftover pieces of dead humans to create something that is nearly super-human in stature and strength.

What is perhaps most interesting about Shelley's novel, which she began in 1818, is that her machinations have turned into somewhat of a reality today as the current generation faces such issues as cloning and other kinds of genetic research. The monster was for Shelley a metaphor of science gone bad."

The novel is rife with themes of morality, creation, the need for approval from our creator, and where God fits in the world and in the lives of individuals. The reader sees in Frankenstein just how the creature fights with his own belief and idea about himself as well as needing to find the love and approval of his creator.

While the novel is more secular in origin than religious, there are definite religious themes and comparisons made by Shelley in the narrative. The creature has a certain inherent sense of right and wrong, which leads the reader to think about whether or not people are born with certain values and morality that reflect a higher power -- or their Creator. The novel is especially poignant because the reader is somehow able to relate to this monster and consider the plight of what it is to be a human being. His creation forces him to think about himself and what his purpose is in the world, just as all humans at one time or another (thanks to enlightenment) think about their own purpose in the world. The creature, like everyone, longs to be among...

The main character, Emma Bovary, is beautiful and uses her beauty to get what she wants from men, which eventually leads her down a path of complete corruption. She lacks values, which makes her unable to appreciate anything that is good in her life. She is constantly wanting more and using men to get it. There is the feeling in Madame Bovary, however, that none of Emma's reactions are her fault. She seems to act as if she lacks free will, which is not completely untrue since women at that time did lack their own free will. Because of this, the reader doesn't read the novel feeling contempt for Emma, rather, the reader is able to see that she is acting in the only way she knows how. In a way, she is rebelling against a society that does not allow her to be free. The only power that Emma has in life is her beauty and the ways in which she can use it and the reader is constantly reminded of this fact while reading the work of fiction. She is the temptress for every man that sees her, perhaps even the author himself.
Flaubert uses Emma as a metaphor for the restraints that hold people (and in Flaubert's case -- artists) back, in general. It is society that does not allow people to do what they want to do because there are so many constraints that both isolate and marginalize individuals. Because society couldn't provide any means in which Emma could escape, she lost the will to do so. Marriage is just one of the ways that Emma is confined, but with her affairs, she becomes confined by these men as well. All are metaphors for contraints.