The Parallel of Mary Shelleys Monster in Frankenstein and Paradise Lost - Literature review Example

Parallel of Mary Shelly’s Monster in Frankenstein and Paradise Lost A Comparative Research Essay Subject: Roll No: Class: Teacher: April 13, 2008 University Mary Shelley was not a commonplace nineteen years old teenager. In a matter of way she was a novice in her own respect. She was the daughter to the radical novelist William Godwin as well feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, who was the wife of one of the foremost Romantic poets of the second generation. According to the styling of Gilbert and Gubar she was termed as the "one of Englands most notable literary heiresses" (221). From the beginning Mary Shelly was an avid reader of the works of her mother and father works. From there she progressed to the voracious reading of contemporary Gothic novels; works done in French and German; Paradise Lost by Milton, Paradise Regained, Areopagetica, and Lycidas and Comus. She was occupied with the works of her husband, Byron, Wordsworth and Coleridge while shortly penning down her notorious Frankenstein she went through Gullivers Travels by Swift. According to Gilbert and Gubar, "For her developing sense of herself as a literary creature and/or creator seems to have been inseparable from her emerging self-definition as daughter, mistress, wife, and mother". They also assert that the creation of Frankenstein is basically a Romantic and Feminist review of the Paradise lost by Milton of the nineteenth century. In the gothic story of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley plaits a convoluted tangle of insinuations through the illustrative depiction of her characters. The human desire of knowledge and his expedient yearning to obtain in existence and practice his comprehensions in terms of real life phenomenon has been explored and illustrated. Frankenstein sets in to motion with the successive opening of letters written by an Arctic explorer Robert Walton. Walton had first encountered Victor Frankenstein during his expedition in the Arctic where he was frantically searching for a monster, which he himself had had fathomed. There the explorer happens to be the only person who comes to know about the strange tale of Victor Frankenstein and his monster. In Frankenstein, the clever and susceptible monster fashioned by Victor Frankenstein studies a print of Miltons Paradise Lost, which overwhelmingly stirs up his emotions. The monster automatically begins to compare himself and his situation to that experienced by Adam. Like Adam he loathes his creation and destiny to be present in this Earth. He thinks that his formation and his presence in this world which is a cruel dwelling is an injustice to himself to what he never asked for or did anything to deserve it. This has been quoted in Milton’s Paradise in the following manner, “Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould me man? Did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me?” The most likely elucidation of the name given to the creator of the monster i.e.’ Victor’ also finds its derivation from Paradise Lost .According to a quotation from Paradise Lost on the initial pages of Frankenstein, Shelley sets the monster to read some line from Paradise Lost. Milton has recurrently referred to God in terms of “the Victor" in Paradise Lost, and Shelley translates Victor to be playing God by constructing life. Apart from this, the portrayal of Shelleys monster also finds resemblance in the disposition of Satan from Paradise Lost; undeniably, the monster sympathizes with the story and role of Satan after reading the poem and develops empathy for himThe acts and exploitations of Frankenstein, as well the monster created by him find a reference in Paradise Lost by John Milton. The Book eight of Paradise Lost story narrates the tale of temptation that the Satan suffered with. It also, elaborates the fateful hunger and curiosity of Eve for knowledge. The iniquitous Fall of Adam and Eve laid ground for the identification and acquaintance of good and evil into an immaculate world until that time. The seed of Sin was sown with one hasty motion and the exactness and perfect ness of the world was destroyed. The consequences for the ‘greed to know’ and ‘experiment’ did not limit themselves to the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Paradise. They transcended further to the nativity of pain, malice, hatred and pursuit for self pleasure. The Victor Frankenstein of Frankenstein gave birth to his own tribulation when he toyed with the idea of creating his monster. He wanted to crate a life and behold it in front of him. He got so engrossed with the idea of his creation that he put side the dire consequences of his experiment going wrong. It was only after the delivery took place and beheld his monster in front of him, that he came to know that what fiend he had created. The reality of his own expedition horrified him so much, that he fled from the sceane. The character, Eve of Paradise Lost was also a slave to her humanistic instinct and despite strict warnings given to her fell into the intrinsic web of Satan. “So saying, her rash hand in evil hour Forth reaching to the Fruit, she pluckd, she eat: Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat Sighing through all her Works gave signs of woe, That all was lost. Back to the Thicket slunk The guiltie Serpent, and well might, for Eve Intent now wholly on her taste, naught else Regarded, such delight till then, as seemd, In Fruit she never tasted, whether true Or fansied so, through expectation high Of knowledge, nor was God-head from her thought Greedily she ingorgd without restraint, And knew not eating Death: Satiate at length, And hightnd as with Wine, jocond and boon, Thus to her self she pleasingly began” Mary Shelley has shaped a rebellious and grotesque God/Man rapport in "Frankenstein." Shelly positions Frankenstein and as this rebellion and draws from there at Man likewise. He hints at the God to be the monsters God. Shelleys assimilation of the relationship of Adam and God from Paradise Lost to that of Frankenstein’s monster and Victor creates an occasion for illustrating a comparison. After reading Paradise Lost the monster states, "It moved every feeling of wonder and awe, that the picture of an omnipotent God warring with his creatures was capable of exciting." This is suggestive of the war that he was on with Frankenstein when his desires are repudiated. From here, the monster progresses to mechanically relate the characters of the story with his, own predicament. The course of the monsters life goes through a metamorphose version of Adam as he had read in Paradise Lost. At one instance he recounts, "But it was all a dream; no Eve soothed my sorrows nor shared my thoughts; I was alone. I remembered Adams supplication to his Creator. But where was mine?" The monster finds the Adam in himself and an instant need for a mate is born. This brings him at the altar of his God. begging for his Eve to be created. However, his wish is refused by Frankenstein at the peril of his own fears. This enrages the monster and this incline of the story, reverses the roles of Man and God for the monster and Frankenstein respectively. At the same time, as with Adam, the character of the monster has also been compared to that of Satan from Paradise Lost: "Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition; for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me." The monster is akin to Satan in the manner that he is discarded by the living mortals, to whose clan he once belonged. Although, he does not recall it but he senses a feeling of belonging with the human beings. This is accompanied with a vile mutation and penalized rejection. The beauty of the character is his duality between Adam and Satan. It is his, own whims and desires that revoke in him the decisive action as to which role he is to play. His innocence and acceptance of his creator to be the God transcends into the role of Adam. However, when he is refused his wants he switches to the ways learned from Satan. References Gilbert, Sandra M., and Gubar, Susan. "Horrors Twin: Mary Shelleys Monstrous Eve." The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984. 213-247. John Milton. Paradise Lost (1667) Mary Shelley. Frankenstein. (1818) Read More