Prometheus Bound-Tragedy Of Victor Frankenstein

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was one of the famous British Romantic novelists, short story writers, dramatists, essayists, as well as biographers in the 19th century. Both of her parents were famous icons of that time, and her husband was the well-renowned poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. In 1818, she published a novel named Frankenstein:Or, The Modern Prometheus, which won her the honor of Mother of Science Fiction due to its special and fresh gothic mysterious descriptions.Psychoanalysis is actually a word derived from Psychoanalysis theory of Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. In the 1920s and 30s, it was introduced into literary criticism for a better understanding of literary authors and their works. Psychoanalysis mainly contains four theories; they are Personality Development Theory, Narcissism, Oedipus Complex and Anxiety.Today, There were some researches of Frankenstein:Or, The Modern Prometheus, but researches which from the four main aspects of psychoanalysis theory were few. As a result, in this paper, the author will make use of the above four aspects of Psychoanalysis theory to analyze the novel.Generally speaking, the structure of this paper is as follows:first, briefly introduces the life of Mary Shelley and her literary achievements as well as the novel; chapter one is the literature review of Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus from the aspects of social industrialization, the author’s life, education, feminism, prototype theory and psychology; chapter two describes the personality development of Victor Frankenstein; chapter three is the narcissism of Victor Frankenstein; chapter four is the Oedipus complex of Victor Frankenstein; and chapter five is the anxiety of Victor Frankenstein. At last, this paper comes to a conclusion that Victor Frankenstein is Prometheus bound in psyche, and his inside psychological torment originates from the very thing that he created—the monster. His resistance of the id instincts and desires is perfectly reflected on the revenge of his creating monster. However, no matter what Victor Frankenstein did to escape from his tragic psyche world, he would never succeed, just like Prometheus.