Tuesday, November 18, 2014

How are Victor's monster and Prometheus different?

Victor Frankenstein is the main character of Mary Shelley’s gothic tale Frankenstein. He is a young student steeped in the mysteries of science.He describes his explorations into the unknown through his obsession to create life from the dead . He produces a great monster which is bent on taking revenge. Perhaps, since Percy Shelley allegedly aided in the writing of Frankenstein, he may have been attempting to allegorize the ever-growing liver as a symbol of the Monster's immortality, meaning that the Monster, like Prometheus's liver, can never die and is eternally damned . Prometheus of Shelley is also eternally damned  by Zeus.


Mary Shelley included "The Modern Prometheus" as part of her title for the novel  and she attempts to compare Victor Frankenstein with Prometheus .


Prometheus was Greek God who breathed life into man and brought fire to earth after stealing it from Mount Olympus. Two years after the publication of Frankenstein , Shelley wrote Prometheus Unbound. There is the same obsession in Prometheus to create life by stealing fire from the storehouse of Zeus.He resembles Frankenstein’s Monster in many ways. He created life , stole and got punished for what he did. Both are clever deities. He enlightened man.


Victor attempts to explore in the field of life and death bypassing the tradition of scientific research. Like Frankenstein , Victor continues to read because he wants to penetrate the secrets of nature. He wants to bring human knowledge to a higher level. In a similar manner the Prometheus of Shelley also tries to enlighten human beings.Both are rebellious and innovative. Both are rebels against the authority and the institutions. Both are in this sense romantic in their new thoughts.


Dr.Ratan Bhattacharjee


India

No comments:

Post a Comment

Discuss at least two characteristics of Romanticism in John Keat's poem "Ode toa Nightingale".

The poet in Ode To A Nightingale  is an escapist .He escapes through imagination .On his way the bower of the bliss wher the nightingale is ...