Frankenstein

Frankenstein (1818) is a modern moral fable shaped by the classical tradition’s concern for hubris, responsibility, and the consequences of God's created limits. Through Victor Frankenstein’s overreaching desire to master creation—an echo of Prometheus and other ancient cautionary figures—Mary Shelley exposes how vice arises when ambition outruns virtue, and how the refusal to take responsibility for one’s work leads to ruin. The Creature’s suffering and moral confusion further reveal the classical theme that souls malformed by neglect may turn toward vice rather than virtue. As a result, Frankenstein stands as a pivotal early-Romantic novel that reinterprets ancient ethical questions for the scientific age, warning that without humility, compassion, and self-restraint, human genius can become a destructive force rather than a noble one.