Comparing Faust And Shelley In Frankenstein: Still The Wretched Fools
Goethe in Faust and Shelley in Frankenstein: Still the Wretched Fools They Were
Before
Jeremy Burlingame
Goethe in Faust and Shelley in Frankenstein, wrap their stories around two men whose mental and physical actions parallel one another. Both stories deal with characters, who strive to be the übermensch in their world. In Faust, the striving fellow, Faust, seeks physical and mental wholeness in knowledge and disaster in lust. In Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein struggles for control over one aspect of nature and disastrously, through the monster, nature controls him to a much greater degree. Many powers are much too mighty for mortal souls, a lesson that Frankenstein and Faust learn by the end of their tales. While voluntarily excommunicating …show more content…
It was a most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest, or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage: but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature. And the same feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me caused also to forget those friends who were so many miles absent...(p.53)
Frankenstein becomes so wrapped up in his curiosity of creation, that he utterly ignores the outside world. Therefore, Faust and Frankenstein's desire to create, lead them to withdraw themselves from society. Faust desires to create love and possess a woman, so that he can feel all that the world has to offer. Frankenstein, desires to create life and become a motherly figure which supersedes any other emotion or need. Although, the characters have different desires their actions and thoughts are closely identical. Even after the successfulness of creating what they anted for themselves, Faust and
Frankenstein remain unhappy. This unhappiness causes Faust and Frankenstein to commit acts far more evil than ever before. In this unhappiness, Faust's emotions become irrational and immoral towards Gretchen and Frankenstein ignores his "beautiful"
Before
Jeremy Burlingame
Goethe in Faust and Shelley in Frankenstein, wrap their stories around two men whose mental and physical actions parallel one another. Both stories deal with characters, who strive to be the übermensch in their world. In Faust, the striving fellow, Faust, seeks physical and mental wholeness in knowledge and disaster in lust. In Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein struggles for control over one aspect of nature and disastrously, through the monster, nature controls him to a much greater degree. Many powers are much too mighty for mortal souls, a lesson that Frankenstein and Faust learn by the end of their tales. While voluntarily excommunicating …show more content…
It was a most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest, or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage: but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature. And the same feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me caused also to forget those friends who were so many miles absent...(p.53)
Frankenstein becomes so wrapped up in his curiosity of creation, that he utterly ignores the outside world. Therefore, Faust and Frankenstein's desire to create, lead them to withdraw themselves from society. Faust desires to create love and possess a woman, so that he can feel all that the world has to offer. Frankenstein, desires to create life and become a motherly figure which supersedes any other emotion or need. Although, the characters have different desires their actions and thoughts are closely identical. Even after the successfulness of creating what they anted for themselves, Faust and
Frankenstein remain unhappy. This unhappiness causes Faust and Frankenstein to commit acts far more evil than ever before. In this unhappiness, Faust's emotions become irrational and immoral towards Gretchen and Frankenstein ignores his "beautiful"