Frankenstein and Paradise Lost Essay

Shelleys point of a creature created by Victor Frankenstein has striking similarities to Miltons Paradise Lost from the outset, as the molybdenum letter in the novel that documents Frankensteins misfortune, is sent from Archangel. deuce was an archangel before he was banished from heaven for challenging God, and we know that he was supposedly perfect. Frankenstein sought to make a human being in perfection, although both(prenominal) the creature and Satan fell from grace at the hand of their creators.The opening line of Paradise Lost underpins the correlation amidst the tales Paradise Lost opens with the lines, Of Mans first disobedience, and the increase, Of that forbidden tree, this is referring to ex who took forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge and was therefore exiled by God. This story of Eden and mans downfall has obviously influenced Shelley as Frankensteins hunt of temperament to her hiding places is what led to the demise of himself and his family.Miltons Sat an challenges God ten and Eve ar tempted by Satan to eat the forbidden fruit and this echoes in Shelleys novel and Miltons poem, as he tells us that heaven hides nothing from thy view. Yet both Satan and Frankenstein want to a greater extent than record has to offer, and the irony in the events leading up to the giants inception are highlighted, by Shelleys use of dark and gothic descriptions of foraging in vaults and charnel-houses, and how the worm inherited the wonders of the eye and brain.. This dark depiction echoes the fate of Frankenstein, the daimon and Miltons Satan, as they all endure an experience of Hell Frankensteins in the flesh(predicate) hell was of of intense tortures such(prenominal) as no nomenclature can describe, and his endurance of a deep, dark, death like solitude, ironically echoes his creations feelings of loneliness and despair. The monster and, considered Satan as the fitter attribute of his condition and continued sufferings, but his hell was in any case a personal one, to be lived out on demesne, and unfortunately alone.Satan, at least, had his host of dissent angels and had experience of a father and being loved, his demise was through choice, as was Frankensteins. It is Satan and the monster who initially invoke the readers compassion, as the monster seems of a benevolent nature as he watched the beloved De Lacy family and took frolic in aiding their labours. He also shows altruistic behaviour in salvage a drowning girl, and lighting a fire to warm his creator, devising him perhaps more sympathetic than Frankenstein, who forgot his family in his aspirations to become greater than his nature leave alone allow. The monster states, after reading Paradise Lost and other belles-lettres he has found after eating the metaphorical apple, that sorrow alone increased with knowledge, as he became aware from the De Laceys, of such things as love and credenza that he came to long for. His good intent could also be inte rpreted on his hearing Saphie play music that he found so entrancingly beautiful that they at once drew snap of sorrow and of delight from my eyes. Satans ruin also came from his pursuit of knowledge, leading both men to their exile from the people they sought acceptance from.According to Stephen Boyd*, Shelleys husband believed that men are not inherently corrupt, and that they are perfectible, adding to the influence of Frankenstein being to blame for the monsters feelings of retaliation to all mankind, and Frankensteins own corruption when trying to discover the philosophers stone of life. Shelley portrays the monster in child-like ways throughout the novel, as he learns by trial and error it was a long time before I was able to have intercourse between the operations of my various senses, and he burns himself with fire as a child with no awareness would.This allows the reader to feel about empathy towards this wretched creature, as we imagine an abandoned child, but also reinforces her exploration of human nature as potentially good. Frankenstein and the creature both state they were formed for peaceful happiness, like Miltons Adam, making them perfect antiheroes. It could be argued that the monsters rejection is what do him commit such heinous crimes against Frankensteins loved ones, as the rejection he continually approach made him wretched. We could see Shelley taking the stance that man made a monster, and man also made him monstrous.As the monster lives in a hut, we are reminded that he doesnt only live exterior physically, but emotionally as he is a mere peeper of family life while watching the De Lacys, and this social exclusion is to blame for his murderous behaviour, again relating to Satan who was excluded my his creator. We could again relate this to Satan who is looking for earth and is also racked with deep despair, as are Shelleys characters.Frankenstein also resembles God, as he created his own version of Adam, and the monster t hat he constantly refers to as fiend and devil reminds him You, my creator, abhor me.. his plea resounds through the humanity of every(prenominal) reader who has ever felt alone or incomplete, but these feelings however are to be changed as the monster commits heinous crimes against the humanity he once longed for, and on his final rejection he cries oh, earth the mildness of my nature had fled, and all within me was turned to bitterness and gall. This is when the role of God is transferred from Frankenstein and to the monster who will now decide his fate.