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Comparing Frankenstein And Frankenstein In John Milton's Paradise Lost

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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” …show more content…

In Frankenstein, Victor asks Walton for a favor as he lies on his deathbed saying, “I asked you to undertake my unfinished work; and I renew this request now, when I am only induced by reason and virtue” (157). Shelley repeatedly uses the root word “un” in the words “undertake” and “unfinished”, as the root of both words means not, directly contradicting Victor’s claim that he is “only induced by reason and virtue”. Just as Satan is notorious for being deceptive, Victor also uses deception to his advantage in an attempt to convince Walton to carry out his revenge against the Creature after he dies. Victor’s trickery is very similar to Satan’s plan to tempt Adam and Eve into pursuing knowledge. He sneaks into the Garden of Eden disguised as a snake, a creature with a reputation for being notorious trickster who uses deceptive language to play tricks on humans. Just as Satan is the snake in the Garden of Eden, Victor is the snake on Walton’s ship, both tempting humans in the pursuit of power and

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320 Words | 2 Pages

In the Gothic novel, “Frankenstein”, Mary Shelley employs the character Robert Walton to describe a tale of Victor Frankenstein’s horrible creation story. Throughout the text Shelley uses biblical allusions to give the reader a deeper understanding of the immoral actions Frankenstein took in creating life. In this case, Shelley uses the biblical allusion “the Angel of Destruction”(Shelley 25) to help illustrate to the reader how evil and immoral Frankenstein’s actions were to create the monster. Shelley compares the ambition of Frankenstein to create the monster to a spell from the “Angel of Destruction” himself. Once more, Shelley creates a mental image for the reader by using the biblical allusion,(page 68) “‘Devil,’ I exclaimed, ‘do you

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796 Words | 4 Pages

Using this creation as a symbol of his obsession, Shelley portrays the importance of how knowledge is handled, and the dangers that can come if it is handled incorrectly. Since Victor’s “quest” to create life is mainly based on gaining knowledge and thus power and since, “Systems based on power are imbued with a fundamental expectation of danger and attack, which leads to a prevalent fear of the ‘other’” (Bennett 111), Shelley foreshadows that Victor’s quest is destined to be full of these “dangers.” In order to personify the dangers, Shelley uses the creation of the monster.

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1845 Words | 8 Pages

Victor’s creation is described as a “monster” in the story of Frankenstein. He is immediately considered to be evil because he has committed murder, even though he meant no harm. He wrongfully forges his identity according to how others see him; as an evil monster. He forges his identity on how others view him, which is an evil monster (Lall 36). At this point, he is growing out of the mental stage of an infant and is beginning to learn how to take care of himself.

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436 Words | 2 Pages

Victor also compares the monster to Satan. Logically, if the creation of Frankenstein/ the mortal enemy of Frankenstein is the equivalent to the creation of God/ Satan, then Frankenstein is considered to be “playing god.” Victor is also referred to many times in the text as the “creator”. What is contrasting about their biblical counterparts is that the monster (the equivalent to Satan) is capable of good and Victor (the equivalent to God) is capable of sin. This meaning behind the allusion is most clearly seen in chapter 15

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154 Words | 1 Pages

After Victor finally finishes his dreadful invention, he believes that his creature is absolutely perfect because of all the effort it took to construct; it took countless months and many sleepless nights. However, what he saw in his eyes didn’t fill his heart with joy, but with disgust after he realizes what a huge mistake he made. Mary Shelley presents irony by describing the creature as flawless, but in reality it has no human features. By using irony, it helps the reader understand how proud Victor felt to create life, but also feel the pain when it wasn’t as he expected. Through this, it can be determined that Victor was naive at first because he did not consider the consequences of his creation.

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798 Words | 4 Pages

Fighting a Mirror In Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, self deception eclipses Victor Frankenstein and clouds his judgment. Victor’s passion in breaking the bounds of nature guides him in making the creation, but when Victor regrets giving life to the hideous creature, he deserts it. The abandonment is just the first step Victor takes to introduce the creation to malevolence followed with Victor’s assumptions of evil and lost responsibility in the results of his own zeal. Victor Frankenstein’s self deception not only forges evil into the creation, but also incriminates him for the consequences of Victor’s ambitions.

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1454 Words | 6 Pages

From the beginning, Victor fully intended the creature to have “many happy and excellent [nature] to owe their being to me”, with no foresight on his actual responsibility to his creation. He just wanted his creation to owe their life to him with no acknowledgment of his care and nurturing in return. However, soon after, Victor abandons the creature, realising that “No mortal could support the horror of that countenance” and that “it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived”. In this, Shelley has alluded to the poet Dante who wrote ‘The Divine Comedy’, a poem that describes the horrors of hell. This implies that Victor sees the creation as even more hellish than hell, which Shelley uses as a device to highlight his hypocrisy.

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1594 Words | 7 Pages

Flawed Divinity Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein mirrors both the Bible and John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost, a re-telling of the biblical tale of the fall of mankind through Adam, Eve, and Satan. Shelley uses a quote from Paradise Lost as the epigraph for Frankenstein: - “Did I request thee, maker, from my clay to mold me man, did I solicit thee from darkness to promote me?” This quote emphasizes how God solely had the power to create Adam; Adam had neither any power or input in the process. It also immediately sets up the analogy that Victor, the protagonist and creator of the monster, represents God, and that the monster represents God’s creations. It seems notable that since Shelley brought this singular quote as an epigraph, the readers

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1594 Words | 7 Pages

He does not see himself as Adam, but rather as Satan. Unlike Adam, the creature is alone, without a creator to protect him or even an Eve to share his life with. In Paradise Lost, the biblical story referenced in Frankenstein, Adam forced himself into isolation and rejection after he has sinned. Victor has rejected his creation without giving him a chance. Victor causes the creature's hideous appearance forcing the creature to live his life in isolation.

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542 Words | 3 Pages

Victor Frankenstein turns away from his responsibilities by ignoring the existence of his creation. Throughout the novel, Victor is constantly running away from the monster and not giving him attention, which resulted in the monsters change of personalities. For example, in page 71 the creation said, “All men hate the wretched; how must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us.” This quote suggests that because of the ignorance of Victor the monster began to become evil and have the urge to seek

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327 Words | 2 Pages

Victor Frankenstein’s intelligence and knowledge, which he initially believed was his greatest quality, would ultimately become his downfall. Ge possessed an insatiable thirst for knowledge, seeking to uncover the mysteries of nature and the secrets of life itself. However, his ambition and obsession with his scientific pursuits led him to create a monster which he was unable to control and which ultimately caused chaos and death to him and those who he loved. Victor’s intelligence is evident in his ability to create a living being out of inanimate matter, but his arrogance and overconfidence in his own abilities blinded him to the potential consequences of his actions. Shelley’s portrayal of Victor as a man consumed by his own intellect highlights

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659 Words | 3 Pages

In addition to the theme of madness, both works display the theme of lies and deceit. Victor’s troubles are unexposed to anyone, excluding Walton, including his own father, “ My father had often, during my imprisonment, heard me make the same assertion; when I thus accused myself, he sometimes seemed to desire an explanation, and at others he appeared to consider it as offspring of delirium, and that, during my illness, some idea of this kind had present itself to my imagination, the remembrance of which I preserved in my convalescence” (Shelley 192). Victor never discloses his secrets to his friends and family, rather he deceives them. In addition, the creature too displays a deceitful nature, “ My revenge is of no moment to you; yet while I allow it to be a vice, I confess that it is the devouring and only passion of my soul” (Shelley 208).

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1921 Words | 8 Pages

Such passion is seen in Victor’s ‘noble intent’ to design a being that could contribute to society, but he had overextended himself, falling under the spell of playing ‘God,’ further digging his grave as he is blinded by glory. His creation – aptly called monstrous being due to its stature, appearance, and strength – proved to be more of a pure and intellectually disposed ‘child’ that moves throughout the novel as a mere oddity, given the short end of the stick in relation to a lack of familial figures within his life, especially that of parents. Clearly, Victor Frankenstein had sealed his fate: by playing God he was losing his humanity, ultimately becoming the manifestation of Mary Shelley’s hidden desires, deteriorating into The Lucifer Principle by which the author Howard Bloom notes social groups, not individuals, as the primary “unit of selection” in human psychological

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938 Words | 4 Pages

Mary Shelley shows these actions as Victor first made the decision to develop the creature, in which leads to the guilty conscience as the monster is the cause of death of William, Victor’s younger brother and the execution of Justine who is directly and indirectly the cause of William’s death. Throughout the rest of the story, once the monster did these doings, Victor comes to the realization that his creature is no good, including no good intentions and realizes where his pursuit and passion of knowledge has brought upon

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790 Words | 4 Pages

In the novel, Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, the two main characters, Victor Frankenstein and his creature, both display a sense of moral ambiguity. Each character has committed both good and evil alike, and neither knew the consequences of what they had done. However, Victor Frankenstein is generally the morally ambiguous character by his treatment of his creation and his own imperious personality. He wanted to be able to help science by recreating life or bringing it back, but at the same time, he did not want to consider the consequences of doing so. Victor tries to prove himself as a good moral character in the relationship between his creation and himself.

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