Shelley's Frankenstein and Milton's Paradise Lost Even at first glance, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and John Milton's Paradise Lost appear to have a complex relationship, distinguishable only in fractions at a time. Frankenstein is Mary Shelley's reaction to John Milton's epic poem, in which she writes the myth of Creation as we perceive it today. His characterizations of Adam and Eve and the interactions between Satan and God and the impending Fall seem to have almost taken on biblical proportions in themselves. By the time Mary Shelley read Paradise Lost, she was very much a supporter of the canon of English literature, so it should come as no surprise to the reader that it should play such an important role in her construction of the Frankenstein myth, which has become a archetypal ghost story. What makes each of these narratives so fascinating for the reader is the author's innate ability to exploit the final struggle - that between God and Satan (or Good and Evil) - which in turn involves the reader in the more personal way. . The characters in Paradise Lost, which is chronologically the first, and Frankenstein, seem to appear over and over again as aspects of themselves and other characters. The essence of these characters is relatively bland on the surface, but when aspects of Satan begin to enter man and reconfigure each other, interest quickly increases. Shelley's use of these characters is drastically different from Milton's. Mary Shelley was a product of the 19th century, when romanticism, Gothic aesthetics and science took center stage in Western culture. Milton's era was different: there was little secularization, and religious change was everywhere as the Protestant... middle of paper... 2.Elledge, Scott, ed. Paradise lost. By John Milton. 1674. New York: Norton, 1993. Fish, Stanley. "Discovery as Form in Paradise Lost." Elledge 526-36.Ide, Richard S. "On the Uses of Elizabethan Drama: The Reappraisal of the Epic in Paradise Lost." Milton Studies 17 (1983): 121-37. Martindale, Charles. John Milton and the transformation of ancient epic. London: Croom Helm, 1986. Mellor, Anne K. Mary Shelley. His life, his fiction, his monsters. Methuen. New York, London, 1988.Milton, John. Paradise lost. Elledge 3-304.Shawcross, John T. “The Hero of Paradise Lost Again.” Patrick and Sundell 137-47. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus. Edited with an introduction and notes by Maurice Hindle. Penguin Books, 1992Steadman, Biblical and Classical Images by John M. Milton. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP, 1984.