Date of Award
5-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
College/School
College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Department/Program
English
Thesis Sponsor/Dissertation Chair/Project Chair
Wendy C. Nielsen
Committee Member
Glen Robert Gill
Committee Member
Lee Behlman
Abstract
This thesis investigates the tragic evolution of the Prometheus archetype from divine benefactor to mortal transgressor, centering on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a critical reinterpretation of the Promethean myth. Drawing from mythological, archetypal, and structuralist frameworks, this study explores how Victor Frankenstein and his creature collectively embody the fractured legacy of Prometheus. Where classical and Romantic interpretations portray Prometheus as a martyr whose defiance brings enlightenment, Shelley reimagines this narrative as a cautionary tale of human ambition divorced from ethical responsibility. Victor’s failure to integrate the heroic and trickster aspects of the Prometheus archetype renders him a failed creator, while the creature emerges as the psychological shadow he refuses to acknowledge. By situating these characters within Northrop Frye’s axis mundi, the thesis argues that Shelley critiques not only the hubris of creation, but the moral void left in the absence of divine accountability. Frankenstein, therefore, is not a tribute to mythic ambition but a reimagining of it as a tragic warning.
File Format
Recommended Citation
Vitale, Clara M., "From Divine Trickster to Mortal Creator: The Tragedy of Prometheus and the Failure of Victor Frankenstein" (2025). Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects. 1563.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/etd/1563
Included in
Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons, Other Religion Commons