Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Frankenstein intertextuality
- Paradise Lost by John Milton
- Adam vs the monster
- Both enter the world with a mature
body but an 'unformed' mind
- Monster is banished from 'Eden' in the form of the
possibility of a loving relationship with his creator
- Unlike Adam, the monster is refused a companion,
neither does he have hope of a coming saviour
- Adam vs Frankenstein
- Forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge - Frankenstein indulges
in experimentation which allows death to enter the novel
- God vs the monster
- Like God, the monster
holds power of life
and death over
Frankenstein
- God vs Frankenstein
- Both experiment in
anatomy and creation
- Unlike God, Frankenstein displays
no love or care towards his creation
and isolates him for no good reason
- Satan vs the
monster
- They both rebel against their
creator in the form of seeking
to attack the things they love.
Satan = Adam and Eve. Monster
= Frankenstein's loved ones
- Both have strange attraction to the reader ->
feelings towards the monster are frequently
ones of sympathy and pity -> 'Evil thenceforth
became my good' / 'Evil be thou my good'
- Satan vs Frankenstein
- Frankenstein 'plays' God by creating life
himself and Satan displaces God
- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- The Ancient Mariner is forced to carry the
albatross he has killed around his neck ->
Frankenstein is cursed to carry with him
the burden of what he has done
- He refers to his promise to create a companion for the
monster as 'this deadly weight yet hanging round my
neck, and bowing me to the ground'
- Both texts make effective use of polar regions
to achieve an atmosphere of eerie strangeness
- The pole is a place of nemesis, where all of the characters are forced to come face
to face with their destinies and the reality of the consequences of their actions
- Prometheus and Pandora - Greek Mythology
- Frankenstein is also known as The Modern Prometheus
- Creation of Pandora under the control of Zeus (moulded
from mud) echos creation of monster -> at first she bought
good but her curiosity induced terrible worldly things