Paradise Lost In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the tale of a mad scientist is told who surpasses the limits of science and what is typically considered to be possible for man to achieve. One of the many underlying stories, though, can be seen in the monster who is created and then brought to life at the beginning of the novel. The monster’s development throughout the novel begins with initially being rejected and neglected by his creator Victor Frankenstein. The monster turns aggressive soon after and seeks revenge on Frankenstein’s family, killing off each one, one at a time. These actions are obviously very unlike that of an average human child, but when you look at his horrendous acts as being in response to negligence by a parental figure, they can

Every person in life is created with a strong sense of belonging. Whether the belonging is to a person, a place, or a moment in time, they still feel connected and influenced by it. Exile is an action that separates a person from this connected belonging, and can suffer great consequences, but can also enrich their lifestyle. In Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, the creature creaked by Victor Frankenstein is forced, from the very beginning of his existence, away from his creator and society as a whole. This type of exile turned the creature into what he is, shaping his ideas and mentalities.

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

When meeting someone for the first time, we seem to judge them based on their looks the most. Judging someone’s looks comes naturally, because we see their faces first. Eventually, we get to know their personality. After that, we can decide whether or not we like them as a person. When you don’t take the time to get to know someone’s personality, you can leave with a wrong impression. Looks do not make a person. In the novel Frankenstein, judgmental people and the way someone looked caused many deaths.

It is not the arrival that matters, but the journey. The experience that is gained from journeys may come to change and mold characters, changing the decisions that may come in the future. Frankenstein has multiple events of travel and journeys that shape the main protagonist and several other characters, as well. In the novel, Shelley uses the physical journeys of Walton and Victor in order to highlight different ambitions, morality, and the overall warning of self destruction within the novel as a whole.

It is often said that the more you learn, the more you realize you don’t know. Even Aristotle said, “The more you know, the more you know you don 't know.”. This can often lead to a yearning for more knowledge and sometimes, can be somebody’s downfall. In this case, it was Victor Frankenstein’s downfall. His love for science and his ever-growing quest to learn about the human body ultimately destroyed him, his family, his wife to be, and his best friend.

Since when he reads the novel Paradise Lost he makes the connection. He says “I ought to be thy Adam” (Shelley 45) and that he is seeking a female companion, Eve, and that his God, Victor does not grant him “[an] Eve [that soothes his] sorrows… [he] was alone” (Shelley 61). Victor is God to the creature, because “I remembered Adam’s supplication to his Creator. But where was mine? He had abandoned me” (Shelley 61). God is who gives the orders and creates life, and that is exactly what Dr. Frankenstein does in Frankenstein. Paradise Lost, the Adam and Eve story falls ideally with the novel since Adam is the first human alive and the creature is the first monster brought to life with dead human parts. Eve is the first female human alive in Paradise Lost. The creature wants his “God”, Victor Frankenstein, to create him an ‘Eve’ nevertheless his “God” nixes to do

“I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend.” (Shelley 69) Said by Frankenstein’s monster, this quote truly defines him: initially an affectionate, love-seeking creature, he transformed into an enraged killer, angry at humanity for the undeservedly poor way he was treated. Victor Frankenstein is an unique, complex individual who encounters a similar change of nature for similar reasons. The quote—though spoken by the monster—encapsulates the evolution of Victor Frankenstein’s personality; misery—a product of isolation and loneliness—aroused a deterioration of temperament from an initially benevolent Frankenstein.

Examples such as prejudice and guilt are very conspicuous between Victor and Creature; their actions cause them to view each other as a target of hostility and anathema as Victor says, “ For this purpose I will preserve my life: to execute this dear revenge will I again behold the sun and tread the green herbage of earth, which otherwise should vanish from my eyes forever” (173). Both despise each other for their actions, Victor desires the Creature’s death since it brutally murders his friends and families leaving him tormented, while the Creature wants Victor to experience its pain from loneliness and retaliation destroying the female creature who would be his salvation. In the end, guilt from their actions plagues both of them resulting to their ends. Christian bible references consisting mainly of God, Satan, and Adam and Eve apparent throughout the Creature as it compares itself , “[...] no Eve soothed my sorrows nor shared my thoughts; I was alone. I remembered Adam’s supplication to his Creator [...] He had abandoned me, and in the bitterness of my heart I cursed him” (119). The Creature is immensely influenced by “Paradise Lost” using many references to relate itself to its scenario.It finds itself more similar to Satan since both have diffilcuties coping with rejection from their Creators. However, the Creature shares more similarities to Adam since

In Mary Shelley’s iconic gothic novel, Frankenstein, Romantic themes are strongly represented in order to propagandize Romanticism over the elements of knowledge and the Enlightenment. In her novel, Shelley uses gothic nature settings to foreshadow dark events that are about to happen in the novel. She also uses nature to intensify the effect that is brought during significant scenes, a strong example being, when Victor Frankenstein’s monster approaches him after a long period of time. Nature and its use to influence mood is one of the most paramount themes of both Frankenstein and Romanticism.

Science covers numerous viewpoints of everyday life and reality. There are numerous studies that include the study of environment, universe, and animals. Another well known study of science is the study of people and life. In “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley, Victor Frankenstein is an inspiring scientist who researched the dead. Victor hopes to be the first person ever to accomplish the impossible by giving life to the dead. He is so invested in his work that he ignores his personal life. Although, when Victor finally succeeds at achieving his goal, it is not what it seems. Victor’s creation has lead to tragedy and destruction. Hence, Victor Frankenstein is responsible for the outcome of his fate because of his fixation with being god, his disregard to humankind, and his selfishness.

As W. Somerset Maugham once said, “Passion doesn’t count the cost...Passion is destructive.” In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein leaves Geneva, his home town in the pursuit of knowledge, ding so he created a creature. Frankenstein gets frightened after the created the creature, so he leaves the creature in fear, only when he returns the creature is no longer there. The creature goes off on his own and get revenge on Victor by murder the people he is close to. Victor wants the creature dead and the creature wants Victor dead, in the end they both get what they wanted. The theme that passion can be destructive is shown through the creature, Victor's self destruction, and Victor and the creature’s passion to get revenge on each other.

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”

Knowledge has the capability to be used for both good and evil. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, there is a consistent message throughout the novel showing the dangerous and destructive power that knowledge can have. Two key characters, Victor Frankenstein and his monster, are shaped through their obsessions with knowledge and the power and responsibility that it brings. Ultimately, Victor’s downfall is a result of his uncontrollable thirst for knowledge, and is brought about through the monster which is the embodiment of his obsession.

Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein wrote the novel as an attempt to be involved into a group ghost story writing competition what she did not know was the effects it would have on literature for the rest of time. The story Frankenstein is about a young man named Victor Frankenstein who is obsessed with discovering something that has never been seen or done. In seeing a tree being stricken by lightning he gets the idea to create life out of dead skins and body parts of the dead to create this being. What he did not know was going to occur was that this monster would be the death of him. Mary Shelley uses the idea of progress which is the consequences or effects of a person or a thing in another one’s doing. Throughout the book Mary Shelley