Hidden Parallels Between Frankenstein and the Bible

Throughout the novel Frankenstein, Victor consistently plays God through numerous recurring themes that can be demonstrated during several situations. Perhaps the most obvious context is when Victor insists on creating a new species, thus giving birth to the wretched fiend, and taking over God's greatest power—creation. The sheer similarity of the act performed and the exclamations that Victor voices in his dramatic monologues account for his distinct belief that he has received some sort of intellect of higher intelligence—“A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs (Shelley 32)”— as Shelley portrays quite visibly many of Victor’s aspirations were to role play God, follow in his footsteps, mirror his performance and actions, but above all, achieve the glory, recognition, fame, and respect from the ‘humans’ he sought to form.                                   There are also numerous illustrations that give insightful information about what Victor is thinking as he glorifies and prides himself in learning a science that no one else has mastered, which further perpetuates his belief that he can serve as God because he has access to surreptitious evidence—“It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of things, or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that accompanied me, still my enquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world (Shelley 19).”                                                                                                                                       Perhaps, Victor even believed that he had a heaven-to-earth revelation because text evidence supports that he had an epiphany upon discovering some vital truth that only he was allowed to see—“a light so brilliant and wondrous, yet so simple, that while I became dizzy with the immensity of the prospect which is illustrated, I was surprised, that among so many men of genius who had directed their enquiries towards the same science, that I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret (Shelley 31).” Through such context, it almost seems as if Victor is envisioning that God has cast a beam of diving light at him and selected him as the ‘chosen’ one. As illustrated, Shelley again uses a religious connotation that is expressed through the imagery of light since oftentimes when a beam of light shines down from the clouds or even a rainbow, heavenly feats are associated with it.                                  Another character, Walton, also respectively aspires to become God, although not nearly as much as Victor does. Through simply the introduction of the first letter, his written dialogue vividly alludes and has connotations of association to a higher power—“These visions faded when I perused, for the first time, those poets whose effusions entranced my soul, and lifted it to heaven. I also became a poet, and for one year lived in a Paradise of my own creation; I imagine that I also might obtain a niche in the temple where the names of Homer and Shakespeare are consecrated. (Shelley 2)”—the numerous references to his own creation, Heaven, and ambitions for fame, clearly mirror desire that are in God’s holy, omnipotent image.                                                                                                                                                                     Moreover, simply Walton’s ambition to travel and find the North Pole seems to have many Biblical references. In the Bible, Jesus is able to walk on stormy seas. Likewise, Walton appears to be challenging God by proving that he too can overcome the forces of nature. Shelley illustrates this principal through numerous evidence of Romantic text as she has Walter expand on how the oceans must obey mankind, and how the seas are no match for man’s ship.