Paradaise Lost by John Milton and The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighierie

In the gothic novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley weaves an intricate web of allusions through her characters’ expedient desires for knowledge. Both the actions of Frankenstein, as well as his monster allude to John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Book eight of Milton’s story relates the tale of Satan’s temptation and Eve’s fateful hunger for knowledge. The infamous Fall of Adam and Eve introduced the knowledge of good and evil into a previously pristine world. With one swift motion sin was birthed, and the perfection of the earth was swept away, leaving pain and malevolence in its wake. The troubles of Victor Frankenstein begin with his quest for knowledge, and end where all end: death. The characters in Frankenstein are a conglomeration of those

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, themes of abandonment and isolation are shown, similar to Paradise Lost, the story of God banishing Satan. When he reflects on his short existence and reads from Paradise Lost, the monster sees that he is more like Satan who was rejected by God than like Adam who was loved by God and he seeks redemption.

Mary Shelley’s, gotchic novel, Frankenstein, is a story of a mans adventure out of self pity and disappointment in search for total control and ultimate power, as he wishes to escape from the realities of his past life. In this story, Victor Frankenstein’s use of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos creates many moods and repsonses from Victor, himself, and the Creature he has created, which conveys emotional repsonses, persuasive actions, and appeals to logic that created this twisted and wretchedly staggering novel. Victor Frankenstein uses Pathos to effectively create an emotional response. After being reprimanded by Victor, the creature expresses how he thought Victor would respond, because, “All men hate the wretched; how then must I be hated, who

The combination of his own motivation and the encouragement of his professor Waldman, Frankenstein possesses a “supernatural enthusiasm” for the study of galvanism and has no check on reality except for the disapproval of his father (Shelley 56). Frankenstein thinks that he can ‘play God’ in his studies at Ingolstadt and is a “disciple” of the ‘religion’ of galvanism that Waldman preaches (Shelley 54). Frankenstein believes that his exploration in the “hiding-places” of nature was a heavenly and glorified thing, however it turns out to be “thing such as Dante could not have conceived,” and is more related to hell than the pursuits of God (Shelley 58, 61). Frankenstein uses his power to mock God, and insinuates his power of making ‘life’ equal to God’s power of creating human birth. This mockery of God causes his own ruination, and thus loses his family and friends to the one thing he throws his whole life away on, the Creation.

Dante Alighieri wrote the Divine Comedy from 1308-1320. The story narrates Dante’s pilgrimage through hell, purgatory, and heaven while guided by Virgil and Beatrice. Throughout this journey Dante conforms himself to virtue, properly orders his passions, and conforms his conscience, “Dante 's psychopoiesis operates through the mimetic deformation, reformation, and transformation of conscience” (Macready, 2). This essay will examine what a true conscience is according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church and explore the nature of the conscience in Dante’s Divina Commedia. Additionally, this essay will examine the errors of Dante’s conscience regarding divine justice, love, and courage; and who contributes to this formation.

In the gothic novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley weaves an intricate web of allusions through her characters’ expedient desires for knowledge. Both the actions of Frankenstein, as well as his monster allude to John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Book eight of Milton’s story relates the tale of Satan’s temptation and Eve’s fateful hunger for knowledge. The infamous Fall of Adam and Eve introduced the knowledge of good and evil into a previously pristine world.

In Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein”, Victor Frankenstein’s monster is an unrealistic character. The monster is involved with the realistic elements of desire of control, alienation, and thoughtless ambition. It is revealed the overall theme of the novel, that the pursuit of knowledge, is dangerous.

In Mary Shelley´s Gothic novel, Frankenstein, the Monster once claimed, “The fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.” Frankenstein, since the 1910 film adaptation, has known a series of several adaptations that changed drastically, not only the plot but one of the main characters, the Monster, from stealing its creator´s name to being portrayed as a cold villain. Though, in the original storyline, the biggest threat to society is the creator itself, the one pretending to play as God, Victor Frankenstein. This essay will discuss the nature of the main characters of the novel and conclude who is the “real monster” in the end.

Shelley draws inspiration from Milton 's Paradise Lost not only for the vicious creator in the stories but also the creations. In Milton’s epic, God creates the father of humankind and the father of all demons. The characterization of Frankenstein 's monster highlights points of both Adam and Satan; even the monster recognizes this within Shelley’s work when he encounters Milton’s

Nineteen-year-old Mary Shelley didn’t know when she began it that her “ghost story” would become an enduring part of classic literature. Frankenstein is an admirable work simply for its captivating plot. To the careful reader, however, Shelley’s tale offers complex insights into human experience. The reader identifies with all of the major characters and is left to heed or ignore the cautions that their situations provide. Shelley uses the second person narrative style, allusions both to Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and the legend of Prometheus, and the symbols of both light and fire to warn against the destructive thirst for forbidden knowledge.

Paradise Lost by John Milton thrives off the implicit and explicit aspects of Hell offered by the narrator and the physical and psychological descriptions offered by various characters. Their separate perspectives coincide to expose the intentions of Milton and the purpose Hell serves in this epic poem. Each character adds a new element to the physical and psychological development of this alternative world. The narrator and Satan provide the greatest insight into the dynamics of this underworld by attempting to redress the issues of accommodation.

In Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, the inter-textual connection to the bible is prominent throughout the whole novel. Shelley connected the monster to Adam, Satan, the story of Eve and Adam and the monster reading Paradise Lost. Seeing as the bible was a highly read and recommended text during the early 19th century, Shelley’s establishment of the references served to establish Frankenstein as a sort of allegory of moralist text. She begins her biblical allusions with the idea of creations, mistakes and sins.

Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, references many other works of literature in her renowned book. To name a few of the referenced works there were John Milton’s Paradise Lost, the Greek “Prometheus myth”, and the widely known poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. Each of these allusions gave a new meaning to Shelley’s story, affecting how each of the readers interpreted her words.

Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus is a gothic horror novel that it has been written by Mary Shelley and was published in 1818. “Is one of the most influential literary text in English. It is a novel which is embedded in the cultural and political period we call Romantic” (Allen, 1). It also encompasses the nature, monstrosity, secrecy and demonstrates what the consequences are if someone uses dangerously his knowledges and attempts to exceed his limits. In this essay some parts of the novel will be critically analyzed and also the novel will be seen through a feminist perspective.