【文章內(nèi)容簡介】 cause of fire while Frankenstein suffered from his own actions because of knowledge. Prometheus was chained to a rock, where an eagle plucked at his liver each day. The next day, his liver would grow back again and the eagle ate it again. He had to endure this tragic experience day after day. Frankenstein also endured some miserable things, such as lost of his family and friend. However, Prometheus endured the corporal punishment while Frankenstein suffered the spiritual sufferings. He was disturbed by a state of utmost confusion and terror. Frankenstein begins to build on his scientific knowledge and when he goes to Ingolstadt and finds a mentor in Waldman, he also starts to take his study of chemistry seriously. There, he bees part of the new science that perates “into the recesses of nature, and show how she works in her hiding places”. However, ideas are simply not enough to cause a young and intelligent man like Frankenstein to try to take on the role of the ultimate Creator and bring life to a corpse. Shelly shows us that the external or the society at large will always intermingle with the internal or the emotional and psychological makeup of the person. It is Frankenstein?s own “chimerical” makeup a confidence in the male scientific ability, a belief in the male prerogative to control nature by the accumulation of knowledge, the absence of a tempering maternal influence and his own hubris, that leads him to “circumvent the natural channels of procreation”. His knowledge of the world is ironically one that is created in piecemeal. Hence the creature can be seen as a physical representation of the terrible patching up of mismatched parts to make a whole. In trying to be more than he is, that is, a human being, Frankenstein finds himself wedged in between nature and God, being estranged from his immediate society as he bees burdened with the tragedies brought about by the creature. As is implied by the subtitle The Modern Prometheus the story of Doctor Frankenstein is strongly influence by the Hellenistic Promethean myths. The primary ancient sources for the legends of Prometheus are Theogony by Hesiod and the Metamorphoses by Ovid, as well as Aeschylus?s Prometheus Unbound. Here will be found an analysis of the influence of these on Shelley?s novel. While the creation of life by Prometheus is only seen in Metamorphoses the act of stealing knowledge which should only be known to divine beings, for the use of man, is a feature in all the Promethean creation myths. In all the versions of this legend Prometheus challenges the supremacy of nature and the knowledge of the gods. When Doctor Frankenstein seeks the knowledge of life and death he perpetrates a crime against the gods and nature in much the same way as Prometheus did when he stole the secret of fire。 Frankenstein was not satisfied that there were secrets that could not be learned by man. ?Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed?? he poses. Frankenstein was determined to make this knowledge of life his, and so he challenged the power of heaven with his science。 as he states ?It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn? Frankenstein claims that ?Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. He is here connecting the various Promethean myths。 his creation of life will also create light just as Prometheus both created life and introduced light with the gift of fire. If Frankenstein is Prometheus then he is Prometheus without a Zeus. The enemy who eventually brings about Frankenstein?s destruction is himself. Prometheus failed due to his presumption in stealing knowledge from the gods. Frankenstein sees this presumption as being his only fault, he refers to the monster as ?the living monument of presumption and rash ignorance?, but the reader can identify that his real failure is a moral collapse caused by his inability to love his creation. Frankenstein created his creature to be beautiful and benevolent but as soon as he was animated the doctor looked at him with horror and fled from him leaving him to fend for himself, with no idea of how the world worked, how to feed himself or even how to municate. This creator does not consider himself to have an obligation to his creation, in fact after the creature leaves his house Frankenstein considers that ?All these employments are now at an end and that I am at length free?. When Prometheus created man he strove to watch over his creation. In Prometheus Unbound this desire to protect his humans is the reason given for Prometheus?s theft of the eternal fire. The destruction of Frankenstein is caused by his own shortings and lack of humanity towards his creation rather than by an outside agent, as was the case with Prometheus. The creation is aware that his creator “detest and spurns” him and attests that this denial of human panionship and respect is part of the reason that he has bee the monster that he now is. The Impact of Human’s Oedipus Complex In the novel, Frankenstein was very proud of his knowledge of science. He determined to create a perfect human being that could fulfill his dream. Frankenstein tried his every effort to create a living human being. However, he did not realize what he had done until the “ thing” he had created took its first breath. Frankenstein found that the “ thing” was not a living human being but a monster. Badly frightened and disgusted by the ugly gigantic monster, Frankenstein abandoned it and thought it would die in the forest. However, the monster survived the bleak forest and came back to revenge on his creator. This plot was similar to that of Oedipus the King. “ An oracle said that the child Oedipus would grow up to kill his father and marry his mother.” Frankenstein and Oedipus? fa