Julia Steinberg
English101
September 30, 2008
Frankenstein vs. Paradise Lost
Throughout class we have been reading Mary Shelley’s “ Frankenstein “, which contains many examples of intertextual writing. Through close reading I have identified many places in the novel where the intertextuality is very noticeable. One intertextual portion that seems important to me is the parallelism between Satan in “ Paradise Lost” and Victor Frankenstein from “ Frankenstein”.
In the early chapters of the novel Victor is very curious and intelligent. He appears to be a young determined student and scientist. As the book progresses, Victor increasingly becomes of an obsessed mad scientist. In “ Paradise Lost “, Satan was an angel who then rebelled against God and was sent to hell. Just like Victor, Satan started off as a good person - very curious and willing to learn – but the more both Victor and Satan learned, the more power they wanted. Satan became evil and dark, when in a way Victor did too[JS1] .
When Victor creates the creature, the dark side of him started to show. Throughout the novel Victor avoided the creature and treated it like it didn’t belong in the world and it was not a real person. So the creature got revenge on Victor by killing his loved ones. This makes the creature seem like a horrible disgusting thing, when in reality it was Victors fault for neglecting the creature.
Even till the day he is old and dying, Victor is determined to find and kill his creature. The very thing he gave life to, he hates. On page 178 in the novel, there is a passage in which Victor asks Walton to look for the creature until the day he dies so that he can kill it. Victor says “ Oh! When will my guiding spirit, in conducting me to the daemon allow me the rest I so much desire; or must I die and he yet live? If I do swear to me Walton, that he shall not escape; that you will seek him, and satisfy my vengeance in his death.” This relates to Satan in “ Paradise Lost” because Satan, even after leaving heaven, still continued to try to start a war with God. Victor could have avoided the whole thing if he had either taken care of the creature or had not made it. Satan would still e in heaven if he hadn’t rebelled against god.
Despite the fact that Victor is supposed to look like the victim, when compared to Satan in “ Paradise Lost, “ you realize that he made his own decisions that put him at fault not the creature. He is responsible for the situation he is in. In my opinion, this relation of texts is very important and clear when thinking of the message of the book. It tells a story that you need to be careful what you wish for. Victor wanted to build the creature so badly, however once he was successful he did not want anything to do with it. Satan was banned from heaven because he rebelled so now all he can do is try to go to war with God.
[JS1]The sentence fr
