Prometheus is a prominent character in Greek Myths that receives a transformation with the onset of Greek Mythological Tragedy. In a two-hundred-year period, Prometheus is transformed from a Titan that undermines the new ruling gods, that are meant to re-establish order in a disordered universe, by trickery and deceitfulness, into an honored rebel that fights against an unjust and tyrannical godhead (Harris and Platzner 78). This change that Prometheus goes through is due to the political changes that are happening in Athens around the fifth century B.C. With the introduction of the newly founded freedom of democracy combated with the invading forces of the Persians and Peloponnesians that want to usurp democracy, there is a need for a …show more content…
In the beginning of the tragic play we find Hephaestus delivering Zeus’ prescribed punishment on Prometheus. This punishment entailed being chained to a rock in the middle of desolate land because Prometheus had pity on the humans that Zeus wanted to annihilate. In the first scene Force could be seen as Zeus’ id, the tyrant’s instinctive and reactionary desires as defined by Freud. Force demands that Prometheus be chained immediately to a large mountain rock for the crime of stealing fire from the gods to give to man (Aeschylus 5-10). Hephaestus “is selected to be the instrument of the tyrant’s vengeance because it was Hephaestus’ privilege which Prometheus has given to man,” since he is the god of fire (Grene 27). It was not only fire that Prometheus gives to man, but an explanation of numbers, shapes, love, hate, language and many other things as he details to the nymphs (Aeschylus 14-35). In this way man and god were brought closer together by giving man dominion over nature and a means of survival without a constant interaction with the gods (Harris and Platzner