the life of Frankenstein miserable by killing those that he loves, one by one. Conversely, Prometheus' punishment is given to him for caring for man too much. His intentions of helping his creation survive went against the Gods, but he felt that what he did was necessary, and would stop at nothing to help. The punishment that he received of being chained to the rock where the eagle fed on his liver daily, is similar to that of Frankenstein, except that Frankenstein had the opportunity to stop his punishment. The monster asks Frankenstein to create a wife for him, so that together they can "live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for [his] being" (Shelley, p. 138), and in return he would leave Frankenstein alone, "cut off from all the world" (Shelley, p. 139). Frankenstein refuses, afraid that his situation would only get worse with having two of the monsters that he had created. Once again, Frankenstein is only thinking of himself, and is totally oblivious to the needs of his own creation. Shelley makes her point of the modern values in society very clear by reiterating Frankenstein's selfishness.The story of Victor Frankenstein is one of horror, fear, and intrigue. It is also one that find itself surrounded in ambiguity, leaving the reader searching for a definite answer to the question of "Did Mary Shelley initially title her work about Victor Frankenstein and his creation The Modern Prometheus solely because of the glaring similarities between their stories?" That, it appears, is impossible. The discrepancies between the intentions of Prometheus in his creation, and that of Frankenstein's, combined with their utterly different reactions to what they had created, are too blatant to be ignored. Most visible in the areas of Frankenstein which relate to the creation of the monster, along with the punishment that followed, Shelley used these discrepancies to illustrate how values in society have ...
