Man is a harmful being, a poison to himself and undermines the very foundations of the world he calls home. Left to bear the weight of our sins, we humans cannot deviate from this stubborn path, a byproduct of our willful actions. Mary Shelly captures this conundrum perfectly with her magnum opus, Frankenstein. This timeless novel takes place in a romantic society of the early 1800s, a time when Europe paralleled science and spiritualism. In it, the mad scientist Victor Frankenstein gives himself the power of creation and gives life to a disease of society, a monster. Fury only follows such a ruthless soul, alone to face the rude world with innocent eyes. After an implacable prejudicial proscription, the creature fixes the anger that grows within himself towards his God and his bitter enemies. It devastates Victor in a barrage of barless tragedies, reducing the man to the solitude of his own devices. With palpable indication through the subtitle, Shelly pays homage to the ancient legend of Prometheus, a Greek god who brazenly steals fire from Zeus and is reciprocated in return. In this sense, Victor Frankenstein can be considered "The Modern Prometheus" due to his blatant disregard for consequences, his hidden ambition driven by desire and the portentous search for the secrets of nature. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Lacking proper consideration and thoughtful contemplation, only hardship follows Victor's depraved efforts. Reflecting on these repercussions, our protagonist thinks to himself: "how many things are we on the verge of knowing if cowardice or inattention did not slow down our investigations" (36). This mentality of reckless determination coupled with senseless underestimation leads Victor down a disguised path of false entitlement. Throw prudence to the wind along with fleeting ethics and morals, savoring a possible future foreclosed by the actions taken to achieve it. All this comes to fruition after he perceived the abomination "that [he] had wrought, the beauty of the dream faded, and breathless horror and disgust filled [his] heart" (42). Once the scales have fallen from his eyes, the illusory reality of his present awakens him to the madness of his past. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, his unwise decisions bring about a plethora of ruin and a crescendo of guilt. This unfortunate man is simply a victim of his own unbridled impulses, neglecting his conscience in favor of glory. Victor is a knowledge junkie, his curiosity past the point of obsession. After discovering how to give life, he was overwhelmed by confidence and "feelings that carried [him] forward, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success" (38). At this point, his ideals have been cemented and all attention is focused on the task at hand. The results set off a chain reaction, exponentially increasing the intensity of his fixation while simultaneously deepening the abyss of isolation between him and society. As the day of reckoning approaches, Victor's nerves calm as “an irresistible and almost frenetic impulse impelled him forward; [he] seemed to have lost all soul or feeling except for this one quest” (39). Finally, the swing of his madness reached its peak, losing consciousness due to an invincible hunger. Intellectual hunger devours him from the inside, a terminal dystrophy that afflicts the mind. Any sense of reason falls into the deaf ears of a fixed apparition, proposed with the sole function of deciphering what.
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