Group7



Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has a similar theme to that of the story of Prometheus. By creating his monster, Dr. Frankenstein assumed parental responsibility of his creation, however he failed to remain committed to his “son”. This same theme is seen in Prometheus when he steals fire from the gods to aid the mortals without considering the consequences.

When Dr. Frankenstein creates his monster, he has complete power at first. He decides the monster’s appearance, and he keeps his work in progress private. However, once he brings his creation to life, he is left with no power. He realizes that he never had total power over the creation once it came to life: he had no education plan for the monster, how he would bring him into society, or how he would control his behavior. Dr. Frankenstein did not think of the consequences of giving an inanimate object life, he just wanted to discover the mystery of life. This is the connection to Prometheus, which can be seen when Prometheus freely steals fire from the gods and brings it to the humans. He does this without thinking about why the gods didn’t give fire to the humans in the first place. Instead he was only interested in satisfying his own curiosity of what would happen if they had fire.

In the “Literary Connections” critical analysis, the idea of scientific Prometheanism is related to Dr. Frankenstein’s scientific studies. This idea is a valid one, because scientists will always have the desire to create and make advancements in technology. “Frankenstein begins to build on his scientific knowledge…There, he becomes part of the new science…” (Critical Essay 2). But will the scientists be able to deal with the consequences of their actions?

critical essay 2 : http://sv2.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=4794