The Mutable Prometheus

In 1818, Mary Shelley anonymously published the now renowned science-fiction novel Frankenstein. Telling the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scholar who brings to life a monster, the novel uses Victor’s life story to foster timeless commentary on human nature and experience. Mary Shelley’s husband Percy Bysshe Shelley was also an esteemed author of the Romantic Era. Just as the two shared common interests, values, and hobbies, so too did their literary works converge. For example, in the tenth chapter of Frankenstein, the last two stanzas of Percy’s poem “Mutability”, a lyrical poem published two years prior that claims mankind is constantly changing, intersect Victor’s internal monologue to drive home the assertion that everyone can, will, and does change.

In the events leading up to chapter ten, Victor created and abandoned his monster, succumbed to sickness, and, once nursed back to health by his childhood friend Henry Clerval, rushed back home at the news of his brother William’s death. Upon his return, Justine Moritz, a kind-hearted maid who served the Frankenstein family, was convicted of William’s murder and sentenced to death. Though she confessed that she was guilty, she told Victor that she had lied and was innocent. Believing that Justine wasn’t the true murderer, Victor couldn’t shake the thought that it was his monster who killed William, leaving Victor with his brother’s blood on his hands.

As chapter ten starts, Victor sets off to traverse the Valley of Chamounix, where his senses indulge in the vista’s sublimity. After gazing at his surroundings which “afforded [him] the greatest consolation that [he] was capable of receiving,” Victor sleeps peacefully until morning (Shelley 86). When morning arrives, Victor is shocked to find that the landscape’s beauty and solace had been replaced with melancholy and obstruction. To try and restore some of the scenery’s majesty, he decides to scale the summit of Montanvert. However, there he only finds pouring rain, broken trees, and dangerous stones one vibration away from an avalanche. He regains some of his awe after marching a league across a glacier and staring back at Montanvert with Mont Blanc towering behind it. Just as his mood changed that morning, Victor’s adoration is interrupted by a large figure speedily approaching him: the loathed monster he created. While the monster only pleads with Victor to hear his story and accept him as a creation, Victor regards him with hatred and disgust. The monster, having been rejected by humanity and his creator alike says, “I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend”(Shelley 89). As Victor finally agrees to hear his monster’s story, chapter ten ends.  

Before Victor arrives at the top of Montanvert, in his contemplations about how quickly one’s perceptions can change, Victor recalls the last two stanzas of “Mutability”. “Mutability”, a poem about mankind’s fluctuation between different feelings, actions, and outlooks, coincides perfectly with the going-ons of chapter ten. The first two lines, “We rest; a dream has power to poison sleep. We rise; one wandering thought pollutes the day,” parallels Victor’s change in mood after waking up to rain and fog that obscures the beautiful sights he saw the day before (Shelley 86). The poems themes in general as well as the last line, “Nought may endure but mutability,” reinforce the idea that Frankenstein’s characters are always changing (Shelley 86). For example, not only is Victor’s calm reverence of the mountainous scenery before him turned into boundless anger by the appearance of the monster, but the monster also explicitly states that he’s undergone a massive change in character from being well intentioned to committing evil deeds out of desperation and spite. In fact, the monster’s very conception sparked a change within Victor that effortlessly transformed his eager passion to create and understand into utter horror and disgust. In addition to Frankenstein and his monster, changes can also be seen in minor characters such as Justine Moritz, who plead guilty although she claimed to be innocent.

Though the poem’s use in Frankenstein reinforces the idea that characters constantly change in tandem with or in response to their surroundings, such an idea can also apply to mankind as a whole. Outside of Frankenstein, all well-written characters and real human beings change and grow as they gain more experience and insight. How they will grow and what they will do is impossible to determine, but it’s guaranteed that each day will be different from the last.

Work Cited

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Introduction and Notes by Karen Karbiener. Barnes and Noble, 2003.