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Prometheus

 

She was familiar with the classics of Gothicism. In common with the gothic tales, Frankenstein made use of the correspondence between theme, character and setting. One of the chief elements in the novel is the use of atmosphere to create mood. The icy mists of the Arctic and the bleak windswept Alpine glacial fields are linked to the spiritual and social isolation of the Creature and its Creator. Not unlike Victor Frankenstein, Gothic heroes are trapped in gloom unable to appreciate the light of the day. They are the descendants of Cain, Satan, and Prometheus- heroic in their rebellion yet pathetic in their enshrine them in their excruciating setting. In order to depict the shadowside of their heroes, Gothicism used ghostly visitations, especially a device known a dÖppleganger, a mirror image of the self. Creature and Creator in Frankenstein is in reality one Self-reflecting different sides of human personality. Victor Frankenstein says: "I consider the being I cast among mankind . nearly in the light of my own vampire, my own spirit let loose from the grave, and forced to destroy all that was dear to me."(Shelly, Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus. P 51).
             In Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus the haunted gothic castles and medieval trappings are missing replaced by experimental science and rationality. Frankenstein transcended Gothicism by combining science with the supernatural, or at least the supernatural. Shelley scholar Maurice Hindle draws attention to the differentiation between what Shelley was doing in distinction to her Gothic predecessors. The Gothic goal was to rebelliously assail the secrets of Heaven, whereas, in Shelley, Nature is being penetrated in a wanton act of assumption and pride.
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             On the other hand we notice the Science Fiction:- the current name for a class of prose narrative which assumes an imaginary technological or scientific advance, or depends on an imaginary and spectacular change in the human environment- (Oxford Companion to English Literature, p.


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