ambition and defying god

• ts

  Shelley’s allusions highlight Victor Frankenstein’s enslavement to ambition as a critique of 19th century Enlightenment ideology revolving unchecked ambition and scientific advancement at the expense of humanity.
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  Victor depicted as slave to his own ambition, betraying nature’s immutable laws in his quest for knowledge and power. Shelly directs her castigation of her own era, where Enlightenment ideologies allowed for societal progress to be pursued with little regard for repercussions.
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  Frankenstein’s hubris is evident when he asserts he was “destined for some great enterprises” and “could not rank (himself) among a herd of common projectors.” Victor says, “I ardently desired the acquisition of knowledge”. The word “ardent” means “to burn,” hinting at the fire brought by Promethius.  In subtitling Frankenstein “The Modern Promethius,” Shelley aligns Victor with the Greek Titan who defied divine authority to bestow fire upon humanity, consequentially suffering eternal punishment
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  Victor’s desire to “pursue nature for hiding places,” employs sexual language to connote his ambition was an assault on the natural world. The continuous motif of “fire” is throughout the novel, akin to Prometheus’s eternal torment, serves as a constant reminder of Victor’s overreach.
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  In fact, pursuing knowledge with “ardour” afflicts Victor with disease: he grows pale, emaciated, and feverish, becomes “nervous to a most painful degree,” though he had previously been in “most excellent health, and had always boasted of the firmness of [his] nerves”  Lamenting his misdeeds, he cries, “For this [project] I had deprived myself of rest and health” .
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  This imagery, reinforced by allusions to Genesis  and Milton’s Paradise Lost. Through Victor’s “eager desire” to discover the “secrets of heaven and earth” he adopts the role of God to bring about a “species who will bless (him) as its creator.” However, the Creature reveals that while “God made man beautiful after his own image,” he was a “filthy type” of Victor’s form, implying Victor lacked the capability or power to seccessfuly act as God did.
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  Furthermore, Creature credits Victor with his “Satan (ic)” actions, though lamenting he “ought to be thy Adam.. but was rather the fallen angel.” By referring to Victor’s actions as “Satanic,” the Creature aligns Victor with the archetypal rebel who defies divine authority, thus elevating his transgression to a cosmic scale. This allusion to Satan, who embodies defiance and ultimate punishment, contrasts sharply with the biblical ideal of Adam, who represents innocence and divine favour.
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  • Shelley directs the culpability for the Creature’s “murderous machinations” to Victor whose inability to temper his ambition to human bounds led to the creation of a being he did not have the omnipotence to control