Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

An allusion is an indirect reference to another work of literature or to a well-known person, event, idea, etc. Frankenstein references several other works both implicitly and explicitly, but it is John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost that is most central to the novel, even furnishing its epigraph. Published in 1667, Paradise Lost concerns the creation of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden after eating an apple from the Tree of Knowledge.

In Frankenstein, the creature hears Paradise Lost read at the cottage during Felix and Safie’s studies. The story deeply impresses him, and he frequently refers to both it and the broader biblical lore on which it is based, as when he compares himself to both Adam and Satan when he meets Frankenstein on the mountaintop. He realizes that if he is Adam, Frankenstein is God, but unlike God, Frankenstein failed his creation. Whereas God “made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image,” Frankenstein created “a filthy type” of human (115). Similarly, whereas Adam had Eve as a companion after “supplication to his Creator” (116), the creature was “abandoned.” Adam was “guarded by the especial care of his Creator,” but the creature is “wretched helpless, and alone” (114). Thus, the creature believes he is more like Satan, whom God cast out of Heaven for his rebellion. However, the creature is lonelier even than Satan, who at least “had his companions, fellow devils, to admire and encourage him” (115). Moreover, Frankenstein has spurned his creation for no reason, making the creature a “fallen angel […] drive[n] from joy for no misdeed” (84). The allusion suggests that any moral fall the creature has since experienced is Frankenstein’s responsibility rather than his own, developing the theme of The Duty of a Creator.

Such references to Adam and Satan occur throughout the novel. The creature finds the hovel to be as “divine a retreat as Pandemonium appeared to the demons of hell after their suffering in the lake of fire” (90), further reinforcing the connection between himself and Satan. He makes this connection again when, in describing his misery after the De Laceys’ rejection, he states that “like the arch-fiend, [he] bore a hell within” him (121). Frankenstein also compares himself to Satan shortly before his death, when he tells Walton that “like the archangel who aspired to omnipotence,” he is “chained to an eternal hell” (194). The creature and Frankenstein comparing themselves to biblical characters establishes their story as epic, tragic, and eternal.