Comparing Paradise Lost And Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

During the Romantic era, Mary Shelley wrote one of her famous book called Frankenstein, which became respected literature of Romantic era. Even though Frankenstein was created mainly to emphasize horror, it rather developed different point of views; it captured many audiences who sought for ideas of science and nature. Throughout the story, Mary Shelley mingled science, human emotions, and nature in order to create supernatural tale that can be understood despite specks of illogical ideas. To make the story as much as smooth as possible without any disbeliefs, Mary Shelley incorporated science and morality in order to enhance her story to be easily absorbed and felt.

In the nineteenth century gothic novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley uses numerous allusions within her novel that can easily be interpreted by the reader. These allusions make it easier for readers to understand the characters and compare their circumstances throughout the story. The most significant and most used was from John Milton’s epic Paradise Lost. It is known that, “…Paradise Lost stands alone in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries atop the literary hierarchy, and Milton’s epic is clearly rooted in the history of Puritanism and in the bourgeois ideal of the individual, the ‘concept of the person as a relatively autonomous self-contained

In the book, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, complex forms of imagery, tone-developing diction, and a variety of well-organized and composed themes are utilized to further envelop her story and engage readers. These writing techniques are very prominent in the section beginning on page 43, at the start of chapter 5, and ending on page 44, with “so miserably given life.”

Horror, death and dramatic plots all combined to create Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which generated the standards for every Science Fiction book ever written. Mary Shelley’s style of writing remained particularly unique, considering the narration rotated between the main characters. All the characters had a special dramatic quality, which separated them from a typical group, and gave them a specific personality. Mary Shelley incorporated elements of weather, and gave its relation to themes of internal and external conflicts. Frankenstein elements are distinctive and show originality, whether it be the characters, setting, narration or conflicts.

In the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, the Creature makes an allusion to John Milton’s Paradise Lost while recalling his experiences in isolation for the last two years. The Creature claims he read the text “…as a true history,” of mankind and often related to several situations, stating “...their similarity struck [him as] his own.” He goes on to compare himself to the First Man, Adam, then later to Satan the fallen angel. This allusion to Paradise Lost works to further characterize the Monster, while also foreshadowing upcoming important events.

Throughout Frankenstein, Shelley uses Victor to warn the reader of the dangers of aspiring to godliness, and the consequences one faces in the aftermath doing so, even going as far as to compare Victor to Satan, tempting the crew of Walton’s ship, in the book’s final pages. The Victor Shelley creates is very similar to the Satan created by Milton in his book, Paradise Lost, which explores the biblical tale of Adam and Eve. In Frankenstein, Victor speaks of his desire to create the Creature, saying, “I deemed it criminal to throw away in useless grief those talents that might be useful to my fellow-creatures.” (152). Shelley’s diction choices, such as the word “useless” exemplify Victor’s excessive hubris, portraying him as a man who creates his Creature for, in his mind, the good of society. Additionally, Shelley repeats the word “use”

Through her work, Frankenstein, Shelley relays her struggles in life and this is evident in how she portrays the monster. At the beginning of the novel her life parallels more with the doctor,Victor Frankenstein, but once the monster is created and we see how the public reacts to him we see that Mary is more closely related to it than Victor. Frankenstein has many elements that are similar to Shelley’s life, his quest for love, desperation for acceptance, and depression.

Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, is one of the most important and popular novels in the Romantic genre to this day. The novel was originally controversial because it touched on many fragile subjects such as the human anatomy and the development of science. The structure of Frankenstein begins as an epistolary, narrative story told by Robert Walton to his sister in England. Walton’s letters tell us that he is exploring, searching for what lies beyond the North Pole, and he eventually connects with Frankenstein. Shelley creates the protagonist, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, who has a fascination with life and death. Gensis states; “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him.” Humans, therefore, were created as a likeness

The monster that Victor Frankenstein created was a Byronic hero. A Byronic Hero is a charismatic, broken, dark individual often in exile with a troubled past. The hero has flaws that make him more human like and attainable to the audience. He is a vulnerable and imperfect being and in these traits we find Victor Frankenstein’s monster. Lord Byron penned the first Byronic hero in 1812 and when Mary Shelly wrote, “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus,”(1823) she was arguably influenced from his epic poem, “Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.” (1812-1818) Additionally, Shelly was greatly influenced by John Milton’s, “Paradise Lost,” (1667) as evidenced by the correlations between Satan and Frankenstein’s monster. Both characters exhibit traits of having an alluring and attractive nature while simultaneously being frightening and a danger to society. Victor Frankenstein longed to reanimate a living being and in his efforts to do so, he created a monster that will prove Doctor Frankenstein is just as monstrous. In the corpse turned monster, we find the Byronic hero.

Within John Milton’s books “Paradise Lost” he creates Satan as the greater character over God. One who works through the individuals to create havoc. Satan is able to skew the minds of man to do what he wants with that individual and to counteract the word of God. A well known example was then Satan manipulated Eve to eat from the fruit of knowledge of Good and Evil. Though some critics may say that within Eve was Satan’s ultimate defeat others may say Satan’s evil soul is embedded in Adam and Eve, soon enough they are kicked from the palace of lush gardens, and everlasting life. Primarily Satan is a costume of his own flawed character, but he nevertheless was able to manipulate Adam and Eve into the fall and is over all the victor. Therefore

The classic novel Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley in 1818, displays the use of literary devices, foreshadowing, allusions and figurative language, which aid the reader in understanding the authors opinion on scientific exploration. These techniques are used to arouse anticipation within the reader, therefore engaging them throughout the text. Along with providing a greater understanding of the novel, by referring to other books, and using the novel to portray the authors own perspective on scientific exploration. All these devices are effectively used within the novel to provide a deeper understandings of Mary Shelley’s work.

usually associated with important events like the climatic, anticipating moments in the novel or the appearance of the evil figure .84

"Human vulnerability." "Irrational fears." "Hypothetical reasoning." In Stephen T. Asma's article "Monsters and the Moral Imagination", Asma uses these words to describe the reasons behind the creation of and belief in monsters. He presents the idea that monsters help people to practice unnatural scenarios that reflect moral difficulties in society. Two Gothic, fiction novels that feature monsters are Bram Stoker's Dracula and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Both novels relate to Asma's idea about the significance of monsters. However, the novels are greatly comparable. There are distinguished similarities and differences between the conflicting themes of religion and science in Bram Stoker's Dracula and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Mary Shelley (1797-1851) born as Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, the daughter of philosopher William Godwin (1756-1836) and well known feminist Mary Wollstonecraft (1759- 1797), is credited as a great revolutionary in the field of literature. With influences of family guests such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1843) and William Wordsworth (1770- 1850), and access to an extensive family library, Mary Shelley is believed to have developed great imaginative skills and fondness for literature at a very young age. She went on to marry the famous English romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1816 after his first wife committed suicide. During her lifespan she went through the tragic death of her infant son, suicide of her half-sister and the drowning

Although John Milton’s Paradise Lost remains to be a celebrated piece recounting the spiritual, moral, and cosmological origin of man’s existence, the imagery that Milton places within the novel remains heavily overlooked. The imagery, although initially difficult to recognize, embodies the plight and odyssey of Satan and the general essence of the novel, as the imagery unravels the consequences of temptation that the human soul faces in the descent from heaven into the secular realms. Though various forms of imagery exist within the piece, the contrast between light and dark imagery portrays this viewpoint accurately, but its interplay and intermingling with other imagery, specifically the contrasting imagery of height and depth as well as cold and warmth, remain to be strong points