Paralleling mythology

Romanticism often uses mythological references, using figures directly and inventing new ones to appear in the traditional stories. Parallels to both the Christian and Greek mythological stories of creation place it alongside revisionist Romantic fiction. This is to show alternative sequences of events and new potentials, that opposing the traditional ideology of 'destiny', fate can be altered. In consequence, Frankenstein's emotive statement that 'nothing can alter my destiny' is questioned.

'Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction'(P.43)

In mythology, Prometheus, the intelligent supporter of mankind, has fire taken from Earth as a punishment for being cheeky to Jupiter. He then outwits Jupiter again by stealing it back. As a second punishment Jupiter makes a clay woman, Pandora, with a box of catastrophe to marry Prometheus, but does not succeed as Prometheus' brother marries her and unleashes catastrophe. Prometheus' final punishmemt is being tied to a mountaintop for eternity and having his liver pecked out by vultures.

Frankenstein, subtitled 'The Modern Prometheus', illustrates a huge feeling of necessity to use his intelligence to aid humanity. The first irritation to nature, connoting Jupiter, could be his continuous probing into science and the second, the attempt to steal the vital fire of life. The punishment for Dr. Frankenstein could be Elizabeth, whose catastrophe was causing his mother's death by passing her illness, which spurred on the nightmare about Elizabeth turning into his dead mother. Alternatively, the monster could be the catastrophe because he was the direct consequence of creating artificial life.

The final punishment is, connoting the mountaintop, a life of isolation ending finally at the remote North Pole. The monster burns himself there, which relates to the stolen fire. Frankenstein lives as a solitary being weighed down by the guilt of his actions, which relates to the albatross in Coleridge's 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner', to which there are many explicit references.