these last words, Victor is finally able to release himself from his dogma of glory and from life itself but his unflagging egoism will not let him concede that he might have acted in error: "I have myself been blasted in these hopes (of discovery), yet another may succeed"(218). Another, almost passing, reference to Prometheanism appears when Walton tells Margaret that his lieutenant is likewise "madly desirous of glory"(20). Victors closest friend, Henry Clerval, is one male who pursues his objectives without striving for glory. This is due to the moderating influence of a female, the epitome of a contemporary males idea of femininity, Elizabeth Lavenza. Whilst growing up together, she "... unfolded to him the real loveliness and beneficence, and made the doing good the end and aim of his soaring ambition"(38). As Victor Frankenstein relates his story to Walton, he speaks of the desire to learn beyond the physical sciences, to discover metaphysical secrets which is more than a simple quest for wisdom. Fuelled by his perceived elevation in esteem and admiration at Ingolstadt University, it becomes his obsession to find everlasting life, a quest for forbidden knowledge. Like Prometheus, he is driven by the thought of glory more than the benefit he might bestow upon humankind: "Wealth was an 3. inferior object; but what glory would attend the discovery, if I could banish disease from the human frame, and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death!"(40). And like Prometheus, he is able to fashion a living being from inaminate parts. But here he has made a double transgression. Not only has he gone against nature, and circumvented the act of procreation, he has used the parts of dead humans to achieve his result. Compounding his crimes, Victor makes his gravest error. His egoism does not allow him to fulfil his obligations as a creator; to nurture and provide for his offspring . Victor finds the look of the demoniacal corpse too ab...
