Romantic Essay Highlights

She (Mary Shelley) attempted to quell the excitement surrounding the pursuit of knowledge and believed society should allow the course of life to go its own.--Daryl Thomas

This transcendence of man from the created to the creator results in the birth of a monster that will be a curse to Victor Frankenstein for the majority of the story.--Billy Lai

Frankenstein does not understand nature and its blemishes, and the reader does not understand his intentions given the actions that he took against his own creation.--Andrew Goncalves

The monster was not born evil, the evilness came from a society that shunned and loathed him.--Dave Oreste

Victor's selfish idea to create the "perfect" man led to his inconsistent feelings and mistreatment of the monster, leaving him unhappy and inadequate enough to play the role of God.--Dora Ocampo

Prometheus and Victor's destructions were caused solely by their own shortcomings. They could have been killed, but instead, they were kept alive, only to endure the painful and agonizing consequences of their actions.--Genevieve Noonan

Shelley also uses the motif of light and darkness, one that occurs in the natural world, to further her comparison. She associates darkness and evil with science and the monster. She associates the light with with the knowledge that science is not as powerful as nature, and the two cannot create harmony.--Michael Fullerton

Frankenstein and Prometheus are similar because they both used their knowledge as a passage way to create human life.--Tabisha Fleurinord

While technology has an isolating effect on those who relish in its advancements, a connection with nature can turn around the devastating consequences of technology. Nature is a giving and everlasting resource that can undo the tragic effects technology brings.--Hannah McCaffrey

The monster was born to be hideous and wretched-a seed that was first poisoned by the mania of science and then planted in to the deformed womb of society. This is but a mockery of modern science, which attempts to override the sublimity of nature and overcome the mortality of human life.--Lu Li

Mary Shelley illustrates this concept by providing several foils to help the reader understand and conceptualize Victor Frankenstein as an instrument to his own demise.--Macda Gerard