Literature concepts and applications

¶ … Greek legend of Prometheus, the god that defied Zeus and brought fire to humans, is one that figures largely in the imagery of the later Romantic poets. There's Byron's Prometheus, Percy Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. For Percy Shelley and Lord Byron, Prometheus embodied the revolutionary, creative, and daringly original spirit, and a "courage and majesty and firm and patient opposition to omnipotent force" (Prometheus Unbound, Norton Anthology 734). Prometheus was the "champion of humanity" persecuted for his selfless desire to bring good to the world. Considering both men's hate for tyranny and zeal for social justice such a reading is not surprising.

However, Paul Cantor points out in Creature and Creator that, "the Romantics made a hero out of Prometheus by glossing over those aspects of the original legends which cast him in a bad light"(77). Mary Shelley's use of the Promethean legend, however, is far different, and it is her understanding of this complex and ambiguous mythology that is one focus of this essay. It is my contention that her reading of Prometheus is, in fact, most accurate to the true meaning of the legend, and constitutes a critique of the excessive individualism championed by the Romantic Movement, especially her father William Godwin and, to a lesser extent, her husband Percy Shelley. In one variation of the Greek myth, Zeus says in response to Prometheus's pleading on behalf of humanity, "More interesting perhaps, but infinitely more dangerous. For there is this in man too: a vaunting pride that needs little sustenance to make it swell to giant size"(Greek Legends 58).

It is obvious, as most critics have pointed out, that the subtitle of "The Modern Prometheus" refers to Victor. He desires to be "the benefactor of mankind...[and] steals, as it were, the spark of life from heaven"(Creature and Creator, 103). In his act of creation Victor is compelled by the idea that "the labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind"(Frankenstein, 930). This belief is in direct accordance with Godwin's belief in duty, "voluntary action," and the idea that if one zealously desires to serve mankind they will find a way. Considering Victor's inevitable downfall, such an allusion to Godwinism can be considered a criticism of the dangers of such a powerful faith in one's own rightness.

As a result Victor is hasty in his decision-making and so blinded by his passion that he can't even "consider the magnitude and complexity of [his] plan as any argument of its impracticality"(932). In this haste, Victor, "contrary to [his] own intention" creates a creature of "gigantic stature"(933). This is the first step in Victor's fall, for perhaps if he had been less hasty he wouldn't have created a creature of such a disproportionate and horrifyingly ugly physique. His inability to be dissuaded from his project is indicative of the swelling pride and blind passion Mary Shelley saw as accompanying any excessive pursuit of knowledge.

Victor's downfall is a subtle indictment of the aggressive and excessive pursuit of knowledge and/or creativity that Mary Shelley saw as a staple of both Godwinism and Romanticism. Whether lead by a passion for reason or a passion for creativity, the aggrandizement of the self that follows makes any excessively passionate pursuit equally destructive. Paul Cantor alludes to this in saying "In Frankenstein, she [Mary Shelley] exposes the dark side of Romanticism, the destructive potential of the egotism and narcissism that lies barely concealed beneath the new romantic premium on the self"("Mary Shelley and The Taming of The Byronic Hero" 104).

In the character of Victor Frankenstein, and in the very act of his creation, Mary Shelley joins together two seemingly oppositional aspects of human study, science and poetry, Reason and Imagination. "My imagination was vivid, yet my powers of analysis and application were intense; by the union of these qualities I conceived the idea, and executed the creation of a man"(1026). This is further seen in the character of Walton, a failed poet, who embarks on a somewhat scientific expedition for discovery. As Christopher Small points out in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: Tracing The Myth,

The subject matter is in part, or from one aspect, the progress of science itself. The repudiation of magic and the embrace of empirical knowledge... is a crucial stage in Frankenstein's personal history. His monstrous dreams of raising ghosts and devils and finding the elixir of life remains dreams until the instrument of scientific knowledge is put into his hands. But when realized through science the monster still retains enough of his dream quality...to make it clear that his origins are not in the laboratory but the psyche"(218).

By combining Reason with Imagination, Mary Shelley joins together the two aspects of human knowledge embodied by both her father and her husband.

An integral part of William Godwin's philosophy, as put forth in Political Justice, is the idea that Man, through the faculty of Reason, can rise above His current state of oppression. Implicated in such a philosophy is the idea that Man must constantly pursue the attainment of knowledge and therefore, reason. "Make men wise, and by that very operation make them free"(Brailsford, 125).Brailsford in Shelly, Godwin and Their Circle also describes Godwin as being "studious and sedentary"(80), with a "trained systematic academical mind," who had very "methodical habits of study"(85).