Paper Summary:

This paper examines Mary Shelley's Gothic tale "Frankenstein, Or The Modern Prometheus", published in 1818, in which the main character, Victor Frankenstein, a young student steeped in the mysteries of science, describes his explorations into the unknown through his obsession to create life from the dead, which produces a monster of great size and strength bent on nothing but revenge. In particular, it looks at why Shelley included "The Modern Prometheus" as part of her title for the novel and how it is clear that she was attempting to compare Victor Frankenstein with Prometheus, the Greek god, who breathed life into man and brought fire to earth after stealing it from Mount Olympus.

From the Paper:

"Not surprisingly, the future husband of Mary Godwin, being the great English poet and rebel Percy Bysshe Shelley, wrote a very long lyrical poem in 1820 (two years after the publication of Frankenstein) called "Prometheus Unbound" which explores Prometheus's relationship with Earth, his mother, Asia, his wife and Jupiter (Zeus), the King of the Gods. In this poem, Prometheus is described as being bound to a rocky cliff by Jupiter for his misdeeds against the gods. And while chained and powerless, Prometheus is tortured by an eagle that eats his liver on a daily basis, but the liver always grows back which allows the cycle to go on for eternity. 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."

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