Bondage in Frankenstein (Shelley) and ‘Prometheus Bound’ (Aeschylus) Sara Manlowe College

Both Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Aeschylus’s ‘Prometheus Bound’ carry heavy themes of bondage, both physically and metaphorically. Indeed, the fact that Frankenstein is often titled Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus demonstrates that the two stories share more than a passing similarity. Both stories deal with bondage as a consequence of knowledge, and of using that knowledge to ends deemed bad, or unnatural, either by the gods or by nature. However, the nature of the two protagonists – Prometheus and Victor Frankenstein – are where that similarity would seem to stutter, as Prometheus is bound for the benevolent deed of bringing the humans fire, while Frankenstein is ‘bound’ to the creature he makes for the more selfish purpose of furthering himself in the scientific community, paired with the eternal human longing to overcome death.

Physically speaking, it is easy to see how Prometheus is bound. ‘Against your will and mine,/I’ll pin you with bronze chains you can’t undo/on this crag far away from humankind,/where you will neither see the forms of mortals,/nor hear their voices’ (Aeschylus, pg. 2, ln. 20-24), Hephaestus explains. Prometheus proceeds to spend the rest of the play onstage, bound in heavy chains, static,...