Frankenstein and How to Read Literature Like a Professor Analysis Essay

In Thomas C. Fosters How to Read Literature like a Professor, Foster expresses how every story has a journey that someone or sometimes multiple people go on specific journeys. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, the novel is based on exactly that, a journey. One journey is Victor Frankenstein’s quest for knowledge. Foster says that â€Å"The real reason for a quest is always self knowledge.† Victor Frankenstein is the perfect example of this; Frankenstein sets out on a journey to gain every drop of knowledge that he can when he attends the University of Ingolstadt. Robert Walton is another example of this. He beings his journey in the same hopes that of Frankenstein to gain every bit of knowledge that he can possibly obtain. Chapter 7: In Fosters seventh chapter he talks about literary references to the bible. Fosters says that by using these biblical references in stories helped people and the writer stand on common ground. This idea is what Mary Shelley did in Frankenstein when Victor Frankenstein had created his monster relating it to the creator vs. creation in when God had created Adam and Eve. Another time a biblical reference was made was when the monster had asked Frankenstein to create a mate for him just how Adam had asked God for a mate for him. â€Å"My companion must be of the same species and have the same defects. This being you must create† (Shelley 159). Chapter 9: Foster explains that in this chapter â€Å"It’s all Greek to Me† that the use of mythology is a way for authors to appeal to the reader if they do not believe in biblical approaches. It is in a way a much easier approach to understanding where the author is coming from. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; she uses a more mythological approach to the relationship between Frankenstein and the monster. In mythology Prometheus created man, so in this case Frankenstein is Prometheus and his monster is his creation; â€Å"I ardently wished to extinguish that life which I had so thoughtlessly bestowed†(Shelley 97).