Frankenstein Essay #2

Myths are used by authors to create novels all the time because most authors need the background of something else in order to write their own novel. Most of these myths are from Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman literature because they were thought to be the best developed in the area of art and literature. Mary Shelley took the idea of "Prometheus" and the idea from "Dr. Faustus" to create her novel. 

Like most myths, "Prometheus" has changed many times through the course of history but all of them have the same moral to it. The myth is about a Titan which is a form of god in Greece who defies the other gods by making man from clay and lighting the fire in human growth. In order to punish this Titan named, Prometheus, Zeus who is the king of all gods turns him into a stone and sends an eagle every day to eat his liver because the liver is thought to hold all human emotions. The liver grows back everyday just to be destroyed again which shows the striving for struggle that humans can have.

In her novel, Mary Shelley does an excellent job in portraying the concept of human struggle and striving. Victor Frankenstein devotes all his time in order to understand the concept and the secret to life. He ignores his family and everyone he loves and distances himself from everyone. This backfires on him because once he made his creation, it goes wrong because his creation becomes evil and starts to kill everyone that he had once ignored but had still loved. Since his creation was shunned from everyone, people, monsters, and even Victor Frankenstein himself, the monster became bitter and did kill everyone so Frankenstein was the cause of every death that had taken place including his own.

The myth of "Dr Faustus" was also an influence on Mary Shelley's novel. The story was about a man who sold his sole to the devil in order to achieve knowledge which means he gave up everything he cared and loved about in order to learn more than he already knew. Victor Frankenstein portrayed this myth perfectly because he stopped talking to his family and stopped talking to his friends in order to learn what the secret of life was. Once he thought he had figured it out and was ready to return to his family, he thought wrong because the knowledge he had gained would end up killing what had been important to him even when he forgot it was. 

The two myths of Prometheus and Dr. Faustus have a lot of parallels with the story of Frankenstein. All three characters wanted to gain something and were punished because of it. They all lost what they once thought to be important. Greek and Roman myths are very alive in novels because most artists look towards them in order to expand the myth or create their novel off of it.