Worldereader Vol 1 Issue 1 Jan-Jun 2016
Karmakar
A Study of Mythological Culture: a Re-reading of Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein
Goutam Karmakar
Assistant Teacher,
Bhagilata High School,
Raiganj, West Bengal &
Research Scholar, NIT Durgapur,
West Bengal,
INDIA
Abstract:
In a general sense, myth can be called as a traditional legendary story. It can be a collection of
studies to explain why something is existent. It is derived from the Greek word ‘mythos’ which
actually means ‘story’. Myths can be termed as the plot in the story that involves symbols thrusting
out different levels of meanings and they are set in a timeless past before any recorded history begins
holding a religious and spiritual significance. However, the actual definition of myth can be referred
to as an idea or story that is thought to be true by many people but actually it is not. Myth can be
possibly a story that was told in an ancient culture in practice to explain the belief or natural
occurrence. The myth that is being discussed in this paper is regarding the Frankenstein myth. Mary
Shelley’s work ‘Frankenstein’ describes the adventure of beings with more than human powers to
reveal the mysterious events explaining a religious belief or practice as told through the ‘Promethean
myth’. Hence, an attempt has been made to uplift the suggested mythological cultural interpretation
in the work. In terms of Greek myths and its relation to Mary Shelley’s works, it certainly grasps the
promethean myth. It is considered to be one of the greatest works of the romantic period and the
mythological tradition is continued with the influence of the classical epic Paradise Lost by John
Milton and the heroic figure of Prometheus.
Keywords: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, Creation, Myth, Prometheus, Paradise Lost, God.
“More, far more, will I achieve; treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way,
explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation” (Hazra,
Aparajita, 2012, p.72).
Evidently an alternative title to Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ may be ‘Modern Prometheus’. In
reading Frankenstein, myths serve as a part of different readings and some level of noticeable
differences are relatively reasonable. Prometheus was a fictitious or imaginary person considered in
Greek mythology as a popular conception exaggerating or idealizing reality based on admiration.
The heroic figure of Prometheus exists only in the imagination of people as his actual existence is
not verifiable. Mary Shelley brought a new beginning to fiction not as mere realism but as Gothic
fantasy contributing to romanticism, a myth of genuine originality with the drama of guilt, dread and
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flight surrounding birth and its consequences. To look through Mary Shelley’s use of the
promethean myth is to relate to the situation in which a female writer works in a male writing
tradition with a myth that surrounds male heroism and creativity. On the use of myth in the text,
Ellen Moers had stated that “Mary Shelley brought birth to fiction not as a realism but as a gothic
fantasy, and thus contributed, to romanticism a myth of genuine originality where she invented the
mad scientist who locks himself in his laboratory and secretly, guiltily works at creating human life,
only to find that he has made a monster” (Batra, Shakti, 2014, p.28). The Biblical account of creation
cannot be denied that includes the Greek myth of Prometheus, Adam and Eve and the Fall, drawing
the glorified myth to show the consequences of failure in heroic action as Prometheus fails in his
mission to overpower Zeus. Readers can point out the hideous idea of creation not represented by
the monster or Victor Frankenstein’s creation but in an identity crisis leading to violence as it comes
with both the real and perceived problems of human experimentation. According to Chris Baldick,
“Frankenstein escapes Mary Shelley’s textual frame and acquires its independent life outside it, as a
myth the archetypical figure of Prometheus is represented by a mortal man, which changes
significantly the outcome of the story” (Baldick, Chris, 1987, p.30).
Frankenstein dramatizes the self’s identification based on the ideology of Paradise Lost and this is
where the relationship of Mary Shelley’s work to Milton’s epic remains a controversial situation. The
Frankenstein myth in the contemporary society can be seen as a positive legacy of free scientific
enquiry and observing the myth allows a starting point to ponder on the situation about how
obsessive pursuit of ambitions makes one forget considering the consequences of one’s actions. The
text came to be popularly known in literary history as it connects itself with the texts of Greek
mythology, Milton and Coleridge altogether. Frankenstein itself has become a myth like a cultural
representation and it has been adapted to movies many times. With the figure of the divine creator,
Prometheus in Greek mythology or God in Milton’s epic is transformed into a mortal man with
acute originality. Frankenstein’s setting in the real world and his discovery of the secret of life can be
considered as his superhuman power but the greatest similarity with the promethean myth lies in the
suffering for the unforgivable actions committed against the Gods. A critic had commented
“Frankenstein is ultimately a mock Paradise Lost in which Victor and his monster play all the neobiblical parts over and over again” (Gilbert, Sandra M., & Susan Gubar, 2000, p.230). Both
Prometheus and Victor Frankenstein suffer isolation and rejection. Prometheus remains chained to a
rock having his liver eaten every night and Victor becomes obsessed with the creature that fills his
life with various indefinable suffering until he dies at the end in his hunt for the monster: “By the
sacred earth on which I kneel, by the shades that wander near me, by the deep and eternal grief that
I feel, I swear; and by thee, O Night, and the spirits that preside over thee, to pursue the daemon
that caused this misery, until he or I perish in mortal conflict. For this purpose I will preserve my
life” (Hazra, Aparajita, 2012, p.189).
The main theme of promethean heroism marks the main plot of characterization of the male
characters in the book. The myth creates a beginning action into observing how the pursuit of
ambitions and the mad desire for glory results to self-destruction that dominates it. Walton and
Victor represents these motives of gaining overreaching knowledge and Frankenstein is therefore
seen as a story of a brilliant human being that represents creation and destruction. As Harriet Hustis
observes that Victor considers concentrating on each part of the monster’s body as “unnecessary
attention to detail as the minuteness of the parts formed a great hindrance to my speed, I resolved...
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to make the being of a gigantic stature” (Harriet Hustis, 2003, pp845-858).As a series of enveloped
first person narratives, the book eventually reveals the various textured references as it applies to
Paradise Lost following the cultural and linguistic formation of identity. It is circumscribed by the
narratives of Victor Frankenstein and Walton about the monster’s autobiographical story and the
center of Mary Shelley’s investigation of Milton’s monstrous myth. Victor was himself careful about
his duties as a creator and his overreaching ambition to level the heights of knowledge leads to the
creation of the hideous monster as from the very beginning he was deeply obsessed with the thirst
for knowledge and perfection. Hence, this creation comes as an immense grief and anger that
tortures him until his death as he exclaims, “Scoffing devil! Again do I vow vengeance; again do I
devote thee, miserable fiend, to torture and death. Never will I give up my search until he or I
perish” (Hazra, Aparajita, 2012, p.191).
Victor differs from Prometheus in his inability to feel any compassion for his creation. While
Prometheus had pity upon the human species at a great personal cost, Victor Frankenstein fails to
exercise such moral responsibility not even for the single life that is a part of his creation. According
to Harold Bloom, Prometheus was their favorite hero because “No other traditional being has in
him the full range of Romantic moral sensibility and the full Romantic capacity for creation and
destruction” (Bloom, Harold, 2007, p.2). Frankenstein’s rejection of his creation is the fact that he
does not give it a name which causes an identity crisis or lack of identity of the creature. Instead his
creation is referred to by words such as ‘monster’, ‘creature’, ‘demon’, ‘devil’, ‘fiend’, ‘wretch’, ‘vile
insect’, ‘abhorred devil’ etc. Even the creature has often been mistakenly called Frankenstein. We
can notice the condition of Victor at the end as he dies in his quest for the monster. His desperation
was so great to see the end of the monster that when he found his own health failing, he made
Walton promise that he would keep the search alive until the monster finally died: “Oh! When will
my guiding spirit, in conducting me to the demon, allow me the rest I so much desire; or must I die,
and he yet live? If I do, swear to me, Walton that he shall not escape, that you will seek him and
satisfy my vengeance in his death” (Hazra, Aparajita, 2012, p.194).
Also, like Coleridge’s guilt-ridden Mariner, Frankenstein has a deadly weight hanging round his neck
that is bending him to the ground. In chapter five, where Victor in horror and dread abandoned the
monster, he quotes from the ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ to suggest his desperation and suffering
in words: “I continued walking in this manner for some time, endeavoring by bodily exercise to ease
the load that weighed upon my mind…and turns no more his head; because he know as a frightful
fiend doth close behind his tread” (Hazra, Aparajita, 2012, p.80).
Actually this implies that he lies drifting in the middle of the vast blue sea and describes his plight
after denying the monster his intended mate. The monster speaks about an important event in
history with the Miltonic touches like Adam. We see an attempt to create man in his own image in
the book and the monster’s hideousness implies the distortion of self that he explains through the
following lines about the nature of his creation: “Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely
covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his
teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriance only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery
eyes, that seemed almost of the same color as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his
shriveled complexion and straight black lips” (Hazra, Aparajita, 2012, p.79).
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The text can possibly read and re-interpreted as the fall of Milton’s Satan just like the monster’s fall
in Frankenstein. The monster’s identity had been reflected by a cultural myth in which the fallen is
mentioned as Adam or Lucifer. Also, the Miltonic textual similarity can be suggested on Walton’s
voyage to the frozen continent attempting to pass through the beyond projecting an example of
amplified heroism and referring himself to God or Adam. We can trace at the end of the work that
Victor Frankenstein becomes a victim of his own egoism becoming more like Milton’s Satan and the
rift between his own self-justification and moral significance of his behavior is referred to Satan’s
encounter with sin and death. As Christopher Small has pointed out, “Frankenstein’s sees the
monster as Milton's Death, whose horrible grin and whose attempts to detain him are cause for
revulsion” (Small, Christopher, 1972, p.160).
The creature can be referred as Adam, Eve or Satan and Frankenstein may be compared mainly to
God, Adam or Satan and these factors helped the mythological and literary references in the work
get transformed itself to a popular myth. It can be traced that Victor creates not Adam but an
unnamed horror, a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived. But Milton had used Satan
as he first appears in Paradise Lost without a name and bears a noticeable identity. One can find the
monster drawing parallels and contrasting his own situation after reading Paradise Lost that had
been described in Milton’s epic. Mary Shelley expresses direct vivid allusions to Paradise Lost as
Northorp Frye observes “The Miltonic allusions in Frankenstein serve to "indicate that the story is a
retelling of the account of the origin of evil in a world where the only creators that we can locate are
human ones" (Frye, Northrop, 1968, p.45). The Miltonic allusions senses the author’s ironic vision
and the parallels with Paradise Lost is established to indicate the important differences upon
reinterpreting the Christian myth of the fall as a collapse. Through this it is revealed that the world
created by her ‘Modern Prometheus’ is a degenerated version as Milton visions it in the same way.
Chris Baldick notes, “When Victor and his monster refer themselves back to Paradise Lost, a
guiding text apparently fixed moral roles and they can no longer be sure whether they correspond to
Adam, to God, or to Satan, or to some or all these figures” (Baldick, Chris, 1987, p.44).
Walton and Frankenstein both sin not against self or God but against the moral and social order.
Although both begins their pursuit with pure intentions, each discovers their mistake in interpreting
that knowledge is good than love or sympathy and that they can be independent of the feeling by the
society. The promethean myth in the work is instilled in Walton’s ambition of discovering the secret
of the magnet and Victor Frankenstein’s obsession with creating a living creature. These are the
ambitions that stand for the thirst of heroic achievement that explains masculinity and heroism since
the time of Prometheus. Walton’s ambition of unraveling the secrets of nature draws ample
similarity about Prometheus taking a possession of the fire from Zeus. The hardships that Walton
suffers to overcome the harsh conditions make his character essentially masculine with heroic traits.
Prometheus also in the same way overcame all hardships and stole the fire of life. The monster or
the poor creature felt himself more akin to Satan rather than Adam as he keeps relating himself to
the fallen angel: “Remember that I am thy creature, I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the
fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone
am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and
I shall again be virtuous” (Hazra, Aparajita, 2012, p.113).
Apart from the commonality between ‘Frankenstein’ and ‘The Ancient Mariner’, the text also shows
enough comparison between the character of the monster and that of Adam or Satan. Mary Shelley
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had proved her craftsmanship in intermixing the different myths throughout the work where there
are hints of the Greek myth Prometheus, allusions to Paradise Lost that is a literary interpretation of
the first chapters of the Bible. In the popular imagination the Frankenstein myth has maintained its
imaginative appeal and socio-political relevance. Rather, a more sophisticated and detailed analysis
upon understanding would observe that the myth is a positive legacy of free scientific enquiry.
Therefore in this way the myth allows an entry point into analyzing the consequences of one’s
actions due to the obsessive pursuit of ambitions.
References:
1. Frye, Northrop and Jay Macpherson. Biblical and Classical Myths. Toronto: Toronto U P, 2004. Print.
2. Hazra, Aparajita. Her Hideous Progeny: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Kolkata: Books Way, 2012. Print.
3. Batra, Shakti. Mary Shelley Frankenstein. New Delhi: Rama Brothers India Private Limited, 2014. Print.
4. Baldick, Chris. In Frankenstein’s Shadow: Myth, Monstrosity, and Nineteenth-Century Writing. Oxford:
Charendon Press, 1987.Print.
5. Gilbert, Sandra M., & Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the NineteenthCentury Literary Imagination. Yale: University Press: 2000. Print.
6. Harriet, Hustis. “Responsible Creativity and the ‘Modernity’ of Mary Shelley’s Prometheus.” SEL
Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 43.4 (2003): 845-858. Project MUSE. Web. 11 Jan. 2016.
<https://muse.jhu.edu/>.
7. Bloom, Harold. Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. New York: Chelsea
House. 2007. Print.
8. Small, Christopher. Ariel like a Harpy: Shelley, Mary and Frankenstein. London:Victor Gollancz, 1972.
Print.
9. Frye, Northrop. A Study of English Romanticism. New York: Random House, 1968. Print.
10. Milton, John. Paradise Lost: A Poem written in Ten Books. London: Samuel Simmons, 1667. Print.
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