The subtitle ''The Modern Prometheus'' serves to hint at some of the most important themes and plot elements of the book. It connects Victor Frankenstein to Prometheus and suggests that the book will be about an act of creation that results in severe punishment, a suggestion which proves true.
Both Victor Frankenstein and his monster have some connections to the figure of Prometheus from Greek mythology. However, the title is primarily referring to Victor Frankenstein as the modern Prometheus.
Mary Shelley's 1818 masterpiece Frankenstein is famously subtitled The Modern Prometheus, after the Greek myth of the god Prometheus. This Greek god steals the sacred fire of Mount Olympus and gifts it to humanity.
The full title of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. This subtitle is very important when it comes to properly understanding the characters, their relationships to one another, and the novel's themes. The title of the book directly compares the protagonist, Victor Frankenstein, to the ''modern Prometheus,'' meaning that Shelley most likely intended readers to draw parallels between Prometheus and Victor Frankenstein. While this is the clearest and most commonly accepted meaning of the subtitle, there are also some parallels between the idea of the ''modern Prometheus'' and Frankenstein's monster.
Mary Shelley first published Frankenstein in 1818, having written it during a competition with several other writers, with all of them trying to write the best scary story. She was likely inspired by scientific advances that used electricity to ''reanimate'' the muscle tissue of dead animals. Some scholars also suspect that her own experiences with having children, particularly children who died young, influenced her writing. The novel received some backlash for some details, and Shelley edited it and published a second edition in 1831. The latter edition is much more widely read today. However, both versions of the novel include the famous subtitle.
When analyzing the novel, it is important to consider what elements of Prometheus' story Mary Shelley was likely drawing on. After all, no character in Frankenstein has his liver torn out or gets chained to a mountain. To bring the story of Prometheus into the modern era, Shelley had to boil it down to its most important elements. Prometheus is a character who is associated with the creation of people. He has a clear association with fire, and specifically with giving the gift of fire to human beings. He is also a figure who is thoroughly and horribly punished for his actions. Finally, Prometheus is a character with a great knack for insight, looking forward and thinking ahead to see the consequences of his choices. Most of these traits apply more clearly to Victor Frankenstein, but his monster's place in the story of Prometheus cannot be discounted.
Why is Frankenstein called the modern Prometheus in the subtitle of the book? Victor fits the myth of Prometheus quite well. He has extraordinary foresight in the realm of science and is able to make a massive intellectual leap that nobody else has yet managed to understand. In Chapter 4 (of the 1831 edition), Frankenstein describes how he first realized how to create life:
Although Victor is the obvious connection to the modern Prometheus, his creature also has some connections to the mythical figure. The monster represents a new race of people in the world, just like the humans in the myth of Prometheus. He also has a strong desire to see his race continue: he asks Victor to build him a female companion, but Victor refuses. The monster also has an important scene that connects him to fire, perhaps even more clearly than Victor. On his first night alone after Victor's abandonment, he has the following experience that he later relates to Victor:
Like Victor Frankenstein, the monster also suffers over the course of the story. He is abandoned right at the beginning of his life and he goes on to endure a loneliness and anguish that devours him. He tries very hard to make connections with humans, but he is rejected at every turn. He is the embodiment of newness that has been introduced into the world for which the it is not ready. By his very existence, he has also crossed boundaries that once belonged only to the Gods, and like Prometheus, he is punished for it. In some parts of the book, the relationship between the monster and Frankenstein echoes the interactions between Prometheus and Zeus, with Victor being in a place of greater and established power but the monster representing an upset to the status quo.
Frankenstein's monster also has some important connections to the figure of Prometheus. Most importantly, the monster represents a new race of people and a new world of extraordinary scientific discovery. Like Prometheus, the monster also endures terrible punishment. He feels a terrible loneliness and rage that gradually consumes him. It is because of his newness and his strangeness in an established world that he has to suffer. Unfortunately, unlike Prometheus in mythology, neither Frankenstein nor the monster is rescued from torment: both of them die at the end of the book.
Don't rule out Victor's monster entirely for the title of 'modern Prometheus.' Prometheus' fire provides humans with free will, making them more than the playthings of the gods. Prometheus' theft essentially founds the human race. The monster, too, is a new creation. In his first hours on Earth, Victor rejects him, and he is driven into the forest by terrified townspeople. He learns to survive on his own, wholly independent of the man who made him. His incredible strength and endurance prove him far superior to any human.
Even in intellect, he seems to rival, if not surpass, the genius who created him. He survives alone in the forest within hours of his birth. He learns to speak and read by watching the DeLacey family, in whose home he hides. He absorbs advanced concepts of history, philosophy, and science by reading whatever books he can obtain. Like Prometheus, the monster promises to usher in a new race that is more powerful, intelligent, and passionate than anything the world had ever known.
The monster pays just as dear a price as Victor and Prometheus. Though he seems to be the forerunner of a once unimaginable future, the world is not ready for him. His own creator loathes him. The DeLacey family, whom he had grown to love dearly, brutally attack him when he tries to make his good intentions known. Every encounter with the human race is met with fear and violence against him. He is too new for this world.
The monster's love and yearning for acceptance corrode into bitter vengefulness. It eats him alive, just as the eagle devours Prometheus. He dies alone on the Arctic ice floes, as desolate as the frigid blankness that surrounds him. This is the price he must pay for being the first to cross the boundary into territories that once had belonged only to God.
Like the eagle tearing out Prometheus' liver, Victor's loved ones are torn from him. Victor's monster also resembles the modern Prometheus in that he signifies liberation from a creator. He, too, pays a price for his newness. He's rejected and brutalized at every turn, until his love becomes a hate that devours him like Prometheus' eagle.
Monster Hunter is a 2020 monster film written, directed, and produced by Paul W. S. Anderson, based on the video game series of the same name by Capcom. The film stars Milla Jovovich in her fifth outing together with Anderson. The other cast members include Tony Jaa, Tip Harris, Meagan Good, Diego Boneta, Josh Helman, Jin Au-Yeung, and Ron Perlman. The film follows Artemis (Jovovich) and her loyal soldiers when they are transported to a new world, where they engage in a battle for survival against enormous monsters with incredible powers.
During the September 2016 Tokyo Game Show Capcom producer Ryozo Tsujimoto stated that a live-action Monster Hunter film was in development within Hollywood.[15] A few months later, Anderson and producer Jeremy Bolt, both who helped to bring Capcom's Resident Evil game to a series of films, had obtained the rights from Capcom for the Monster Hunter adaption after about five years of discussion. The two anticipate a series of Monster Hunter films. Anderson said he was drawn to the Monster Hunter property, not only because of the series' popularity, but also for the "incredibly beautiful, immersive world they've created". Anderson had already penned out a script, which would involve an American being dragged into the parallel universe in which the Monster Hunter series is set, learning how to fight monsters, and then having to deal with the situation when monsters cross back into the real world and start attacking, such as a final climactic battle at Los Angeles International Airport.[16] At this stage of the script, the concept had been based on a young adult character from the real world called Lucas who was being sought as the hero to drive back the monsters from the real world to the fantasy one; in this form, the script would have explained why certain legends in the real world seemed to align with the monsters from the fantasy world. As the script developed over the intervening years, Anderson moved away from the "young adult" concept as the genre had become overused in Hollywood, and instead had developed a script based on the premises set by Avatar and Raiders of the Lost Ark.[17] Anderson said that the film's storyline was primarily based on a crossover event in the game Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker with Monster Hunter Freedom Unite in 2010, in which a military squad briefly faced monsters from the Monster Hunter series, with Milla Jovovich's Artemis and Tony Jaa's Hunter respectively replacing the video game roles of the characters Big Boss (Snake) and Trenya, stating that "I thought this was great imagery to juxtapose a man with a machine gun .mw-parser-output .noitalicfont-style:normal[Snake] against the creatures [of Monster Hunter].".[1]
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