In Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, the protagonist, Frankenstein, displays the fatal form of ambition rife within tragic literature; hubris. An example of this hubris is also displayed in the tale of Prometheus, a god who upon giving fire to the human race, was tied to a cliff, and forced to go through having his liver eaten out of him alive by big, taloned birds daily. Both protagonists displayed intense hubris, both were heavily punished for this hubris, but both figures were saved in the end, almost as if by miracle.
Prometheus and Frankenstein both displayed hubris in their actions. In Frankenstein it was alluded that the scientist felt that he had the right to play god. Taking responsibility of life is not a small task, often times the creation of human beings is believed to be a joyous, wondrous and mysterious stage in the life cycle. But, in Frankenstein, this integral purpose and stage of the human race and existence is skewed in a disturbing way, through Frankenstein's ambitious choice to take control of this piece of the cycle himself, and create his own human from scratch. In his mad ambition, he throws aside his morality, grave digging body parts from other human beings, and painstakingly sewing them together to make the 'perfect being'. Mary Shelley reveals that Frankenstein's purpose for this creation is not entirely valiant. Rather than trying to create a human being from scratch for the advancement of the human race, Victor Frankenstein simply wants to complete this lofty ambition for his own personal gain, to be revered among the scientific world, to be admired. Prometheus is credited with the creation of man from clay in Greek mythology, so the theme of creation by one man is displayed in both tales. But, Prometheus' hubris does not lie in his creation. In his case, his hubris leads to tragedy when he steals fire from Zeus in order to enable mankind to civilize. Prometheus, credited with being a trickster figure in Greek mythology, had already made a fool of Zeus on a few occasions, and his hubris lay in the fact that he believed he had the right to choose the path of mankind, even though Zeus was the ruling god.
While Prometheus' punishment for his hubris was very literal, Frankenstein's punishment was much more emotionally corrosive. Prometheus was chained to a rock, destined to have his liver eaten out every day for eternity. Frankenstein, on the other hand, bounded by mortality, only had one life to experience the pain caused by his creation. When Frankenstein created the monster, his hubris led him to immediately expect it to turn out just like any other human being, even though it was the product of lightning, and as stated before, other sewn together dead body parts he found in graveyards. Even though he meticulously collected and constructed the pieces for the monster, it was still in the end a reanimated dead body. It is highlighted that this fatal mistake, laying within Frankenstein's hubris and ambition, led to the cruel creation of a monster with the mind of a highly intelligent and empathetic individual, but the appearance of a gruesome, ugly creation, which fit perfectly, unfortunately for it, with the way it was created. Frankenstein's first punishment was deep dissatisfaction, which led to an ensuing emotional breakdown reflected in all Romantic literature. But, then, the real punishment ensued. Further consequences of Frankenstein's hubris were displayed after he spurned his creature, even though it was in some ways more intelligent than he was himself. His fatal pride led him to belittle his creature and abandon it, making the creature develop a hunger for revenge against the master who created him with no care as to what might happen to the creature if things did not go according to plan. In both Prometheus' and Frankenstein's cases, they made enemies of people who they thought they had power over. But, unfortunately, both literary works evoked the fact that really, neither Frankenstein, nor ,most literally, Prometheus had ultimate power over those who they chose to go up against. In Shelley's novel, Frankenstein's monster wreaked havoc on Frankenstein's family, killing all of his loved ones, and in Greek mythology Zeus exacted revenge on Prometheus by sending the first woman, Pandora, down to man to enter pain and suffering into their world. So, both protagonists' selfish actions were highlighted to have led to the demise of those who they held dear, Frankenstein's family, and Prometheus' creation, man. But, both works enforced further intense personal punishment on both Frankenstein and Prometheus through their superiors. Frankenstein was driven mad, forced to continually pursue his creature until the day of his death, and Prometheus, to be literally pecked to death day by day.
Both stories are not entirely tragic, due to the fact that saviors come out of the blue to both protagonists, and this reflects the end of the cycle of hubris in both works. In Prometheus' case, the hero Hercules releases him from his torture, coming out of the blue, slaying the eagle like bird plaguing the fallen god, and thus saving Prometheus from his torture. Likewise, in Frankenstein, Robert Walton's ship comes out of the blue, in the middle of the ice of the North Pole, and saves Frankenstein, featuring scenes of Walton nursing him back to health. While it was probably easy for Hercules to see the effects of Prometheus' hubris directly, Frankenstein's punishment could not be seen directly by Walton. Frankenstein sees in Walton a prelude to the hubris the scientist found in himself. Because of Frankenstein's journey through his hubris, he is able to warn young Walton by means of telling the man what happened to him.
The cycle of hubris in both Prometheus and Frankenstein is very alike, but in some cases also different. Prometheus' tale of hubris is altogether more literal, and Frankenstein's journey, being Romantic rather then mythological, placed much more emphasis on an emotional and psychological journey. It is interesting to see the many correlations between the two, and offers a greater understanding of Frankenstein as a literary work, as a whole.
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