Frankenstein and Paradise Lost: York Notes

Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould Me man? Did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me? (Paradise Lost, 10.743–5)

Shelley chooses for her epigraph a quotation from Paradise Lost, one of the books in the monster's library, and this, along with the many other references to Milton's epic poem throughout the novel, suggests the need to keep this story in mind when reading Frankenstein. The epigraph immediately encourages us to associate Victor with God and the monster with Adam, and this seems appropriate since, as creator, Victor assumes the role of God, and the 'man' he creates is the monster.


However, while the monster certainly fits the role of Adam, he also becomes the demon, assuming the role of Satan, the fallen archangel who engineers the fall of Adam and brings Sin and Death into the world. When the monster confronts Victor, after the murder of William, he declares that he has been changed by his exclusion from paradise: 'I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed' (p. 103). The monster even echoes Satan's words in Paradise Lost at such moments as when he declares to Walton that, after his potential companion had been destroyed, 'Evil thenceforth became my good' (p. 222).


Victor similarly links himself with Satan, the fallen angel, and while the analogy drawn between the monster and Satan focuses attention on the creature's horrific acts of savage violence, the analogy drawn between Victor and Satan focuses attention more on Victor's pride and ambition. In attempting to displace God, he demonstrates the same pride as Satan, who had similar aspirations. Commenting upon his torment of guilt, Victor draws upon the following simile: 'Like the archangel who aspired to omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell' (p. 214). Victor's hell is within him: it is hell as a psychological state, but this is also true of the hell so powerfully described by Satan in Paradise Lost.


For the Romantics, Milton's Satan is an interesting, even glamorous figure, nothing like the shadowy figure of the Bible. Percy Shelley even considered that Satan was morally superior to God in Milton's poem, and many of the Romantic poets admired the grandeur and boldness of his aspirations. While Victor must be condemned for the neglect of his creature, it is possible that he too can still be admired for his bold aspirations, his refusal to be satisfied with a mundane and uneventful existence with his family, and his attempt to give humankind a power thought to belong to God alone. To come to that conclusion, however, perhaps we need to be convinced that his work is driven by the desire to benefit others and not by more selfish motives.