Frankenstein: themes and literary analysis

Frankenstein

MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN

AND the MYTH of PROMETHEUS

According to Robert Kiely, Victor Frankenstein, the main protagonist in Mary Shelley's 1818 British masterpiece of terror and suspense, is the "divine wanderer" with a spirit "enlivened by a supernatural enthusiasm" and has often been compared to the Greek god Prometheus as a result of his "desire to grasp the secrets of heaven and earth" as a dedicated scientist and master of the alchemic arts. Many scholars have wondered exactly why Mary Shelley chose to subtitle her novel the Modern Prometheus. Some have argued that this refers to Percy Shelley's Prometheus Unbound; others have suggested that it refers to Mary's father, William Godwin, or even the great British poet George Gordon, Lord Byron, or perhaps one or several of the poetic giants of 19th century England, such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge or John Keats.

However, after a careful reading of the text, it is abundantly clear that Mary Shelley decided to subtitle her novel as such because of the impact that the myth of Prometheus had upon her in her youth which she then transcribed into the overall plot and theme of the novel.

Before examining the text of Frankenstein, we must explore the foundations for the myth of Prometheus as written down in ancient Greece and subsequently passed on through the generations via the Greek oral tradition. According to Greek mythology, Prometheus, one of the Titans, was given the task by the gods to mold mankind from the clay of the earth. But due to his stubborn nature, Prometheus often came into conflict with his father Zeus, the all-powerful god of Mount Olympus and the so-called "Father of the Greek Gods." The main conflict with Zeus occurred when Prometheus stole fire from heaven and "delivered it to mortal man."

As punishment, Zeus ordered that Prometheus be bound to a rock, where an eagle "was set to feed upon his ever-regenerating liver or heart." Interestingly, the name of Prometheus "signifies forethought," meaning to think or conceive of something before actually commencing upon it. This is very similar to Victor Frankenstein's long drawn-out "forethought" related to his creation of the undying Creature ("Prometheus," Internet).

As outlined in the poems of Hesiod, after Prometheus was freed from the rock by Heracles (Hercules), the goddess Pandora, in response to orders from Zeus, opened her proverbial "box of woe" which "concealed all the evils which might torment mortals in life." Thus, "diseases and suffering of every kind now issued forth" from Pandora's box to plague mortal man for all eternity. According to the Greek playwright Aeschylus, Prometheus was "an immortal god... An omniscient seer, an heroic sufferer" who would not "bend his inflexible mind." Prometheus also acquainted mortal man with "astronomy, mathematics... medicine... And all the other arts," thus serving as a kind of teacher and instructor for mankind ("Prometheus," Internet).

Prometheus was also blessed with many children, among them Deukalion, the good son who was "the first man to found cities, build temples to the gods and rule mankind as king." According to Ovid, writing in the Metamorphosis, when Zeus decided to destroy all of mankind due to their wickedness and blasphemous ways of living, Deukalion pleaded with him in the form of a prayer which runs thus -- "O, for my father's magic to restore mankind again and in the molded clay breathe life and so repopulate the world!" ("Prometheus," Internet).

In the words of the great Greek philosopher and teacher Plato, when the gods of Mount Olympus were prepared to bring human life to the earth, they ordered Prometheus "to equip them and to distribute to them severally their proper qualities." The god Epimetheus was given the task of distributing, while Prometheus agreed to do the inspecting to make sure everything was proper for mankind. When the time came to begin his inspections, Prometheus discovered that all of the animals "were suitably furnished, but that man alone was naked and shoeless and had neither bed nor arms of defense." And when humankind was ready to "go forth into the light of day," he realized than man was not sufficiently prepared which inspired him to steal "the mechanical arts... And fire" ("Prometheus," Internet).

After Prometheus fashioned mankind from the clay of the earth, he enlisted the assistance of Vulcanus upon a command from Zeus to also fashion a woman from the same clay. Her name was Pandora, the same goddess who released all the sufferings of pain and death upon mankind after Prometheus stole fire from the gods. And when Prometheus had given fire and other material goods to mankind in order for them to survive as mortals upon the earth, Prometheus realized that man "had the wisdom necessary to the support of life, but political wisdom (i.e., how to create a viable society) he had not, for that was in the keeping of Zeus" (Prometheus," Internet).

Thus, all of these references and many others concerning Prometheus can be found within the text of Frankenstein, either vaguely concealed or right out in the open in the form of metaphors and symbols. After all, on the title page of the first edition of Frankenstein, published in 1818, Mary Shelley saw it as fitting and proper to include the following quotation from Milton's Paradise Lost -- "Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay/to mould Me man? Did I solicit thee/From darkness to promote me?" (Smith, 20).

In Chapter Two of Mary Shelley's classic tale, Victor Frankenstein, the central character and narrator for the entire length of the novel (with the exception of the letters by Robert Walton), relates that as a child "It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn... The inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man... The metaphysical... The highest physical secrets of the world" (Shelley, 32). These words could almost have come from the very mouth of Prometheus himself, for they convey his deep desires to learn the secrets of the gods, especially the "mysterious soul of man" whom Prometheus created from the clay of the earth.

These words also reflect Prometheus' signification as one with "forethought" which can also be applied to Victor via his pronouncement that as a child, he was eager to learn, but not "learn all things indiscriminately" (Shelley, 32), meaning that he thought out beforehand exactly what he was to study as an adult, being natural philosophy, "the genius that has regulated my fate" (Shelley, 33).

Also in Chapter Two, Victor relates an experience which occurred when he was fifteen years old, when his family had "retired to our house near Belrive." Here, Victor witnessed "a most violent and terrible thunderstorm" which had moved very rapidly from "behind the mountains of Jura." And as the "thunder burst... with frightful loudness," he beheld "a stream of fire issue from an old and beautiful oak." Soon after, "the dazzling light vanished" and the oak "disappeared" with nothing remaining "but a blasted stump" (Shelley, 34). Clearly, Shelley is referring to Prometheus and his act of defiance when he stole fire from the gods and brought it to mankind. In this instance, the fire which Victor refers to issued from the heavens in the form of a lightning bolt which struck the oak tree and set it on fire. Thus, the lightning, much like fire, was "stolen" from heaven and presented to Victor, a mortal figure who at the time had some knowledge of "the more obvious laws of electricity" (Shelley, 34).

In Chapter Three of Frankenstein, Victor tells us that Elizabeth, who was adopted by the Frankenstein family when she was but an infant, has become ill from scarlet fever. Victor's mother, despite being warned that scarlet fever is extremely infectious, tends to Elizabeth's needs at her sick bed through "watchful attentions" which ultimately "triumphed over the malignity of the distemper." Elizabeth is thus saved from death, but Victor's mother also becomes ill -- "Her fever was accompanied by the most alarming symptoms." On her own deathbed, she resigns herself "cheerfully to death" and then Victor admits that he experienced "the feelings of those whose dearest ties are rent by that most irreparable evil; the void that presents itself to the soul" (Shelley, 36), namely, the specter of death.

This entire scenario is very closely linked to Pandora's box which when opened allowed disease and sickness to enter the world of mortal man. In this respect, Victor Frankenstein feels great remorse for the loss of his beloved mother, just as Prometheus felt when Zeus punished mankind by allowing Pandora's "box of woe" to be opened as a result of stealing fire from the gods of Mount Olympus.

In Chapter Four of Frankenstein, the reader is introduced to Victor's unsettled mind as he conceives of a method that will bring life to the dead. While ruminating on the various aspects of death and dying, Victor admits a terrible secret "which I alone possessed...to which I had dedicated myself" -- "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?" (Shelley, 43). What Victor is saying is that in order to create a living being from the dead, he must haunt the graveyards like a human ghoul and experiment on live animals to "animate" "lifeless clay," being the deceased remains of human beings. From this admission, it is abundantly obvious that Victor, like Prometheus, sees "clay" as the foundation for creation, a substance which is part of the earth itself and which allows skilled hands to mold it into any shape or form desired.

In Chapter Five of Frankenstein, "on a dreary night of November," Victor describes "the accomplishment of my toils" while surrounded by "the instruments of life." This is the pivotal creation scene in the novel which some scholars have mentioned as having "not enough substance related to exactly how Victor created his monster" (Smith, 256). In this setting, Victor, full of anxiety and fearful of the unknown, attempts to figure out how "I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay before my feet." Certainly, the use of electricity in the form of galvanic batteries was his only option, and at "one in the morning" by the "glimmer of half-extinguished light," Victor observes "the dull yellow eye of the creature open" amid heavy breathing and much movement of its "agitated" limbs (Shelley, 45).

Once again, we can sense of presence of Prometheus as he breathes life into the lifeless clay of the earth which lies before his feet. Incidentally, Victor describes his newly-risen Creature as having yellow skin, black hair and lips and pearly-white teeth, colors which are most closely associated with the earth, such as in yellow ocher clay used for modeling purposes by sculptors. In addition, this creation scenario is replete with regeneration, meaning that the Creature, composed of dead body parts from the graveyard, is much like the liver/heart of Prometheus which regenerates itself on a daily basis so that the eagle can feed on it as Prometheus lies bounded to the rock.

As described by the playwright Aeschylus, Prometheus was an "immortal god," an "omniscient seer," and a "heroic sufferer" and possessed an "inflexible mind," traits which are certainly present in the form of the Creature, whom Victor sees as a "devil" and a "daemon." For example, in Chapter 10 of Frankenstein, upon their first meeting in the "cold gale of the mountains," the Creature states that he is "miserable beyond all living things" and relates "Have I not suffered enough that you seek to increase my misery?" (Shelley, 73). In this scene, the reader is inundated with much discussion that borders on some type of romantic treatise written by Lord Byron or Percy Shelley. For instance, the Creature tells Victor "Remember, that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed...I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend" (Shelley, 74).