Sunday, August 23, 2009

The Monster & the Bible

As the monster begins to tell Dr. Frankenstein his tale (page 92), he alludes to the Bible’s Book of Genesis. The order in which he discovers major aspects of his surroundings is essentially the order in which the Bible says the world was created. In the Bible, God creates light, separates the land and water, creates vegetation, divides the day and night, creates animals, and lastly creates humans. In Frankenstein, the monster first perceives light, followed by land and water. Eventually, he begins to eat berries as he understands the difference between day and night. He then comes in contact with “little winged animals” and lastly, as in the Bible, humans. The connection is significant in that with Dr. Frankenstein, Shelley creates a repeating illusion to God through the creation of his monster; not only does Victor want to create a new species, but he wants them to be dependent on him, as the first humans were on their creator. In that his monster went through the same order of experiences as the earth when it was new, Victor seems to have succeeded.

Source:

Genesis. King James Bible. University of Virginia, 1995. Web. 23 Aug. 2009. http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=KjvGene.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=all.

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