Frankenstein and Medea Comparative Analysis Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards detailing key themes, character dynamics, settings, and literary devices across Shelley's Frankenstein and Euripides' Medea.

Reversal of Nature

The violation of natural law and expected life roles in both Frankenstein and Medea—such as Victor creating life without a woman and Medea killing her children—which leads directly to moral inversion, tragedy, and disorder.

Victor's Inversion of Creation

Victor Frankenstein's act of creating life without a woman to replace the role of God and nature, which results in moral and physical chaos after he denies responsibility and abandons the Creature.

Medea's Moral Inversion

Medea's deliberate rejection of maternal responsibility and protection to murder her own children (page 82, line 1240) as a final, resolute act of vengeance to wound Jason's heart.

Helios' Chariot

A divine chariot drawn by dragons given to Medea by her grandfather Helios (page 84, line 1315/1321), enabling her flying escape above the stage and defying human expectations of justice.

Cyclical Revenge

A self-consuming reaction to betrayal in both works where suffering transforms into catastrophic violence, as seen when the Creature murders Victor's loved ones and Medea kills Glauce, King Creon, and her children.

Corinth

The structured patriarchal polis that serves as the setting for Medea, functioning as a political trap and closed domestic space that reinforces her isolation, exile, and emotional repression.

Sublime Settings in Frankenstein

Extreme and hostile environments such as the Alps, Arctic wastelands, and stormy seas that mirror Victor's internal guilt, emotional turmoil, and separation from society.

Isolation and Alienation

A condition in both texts that destabilises identity and produces violence through rejection, affecting the Creature who is denied humanity due to physical otherness and Medea who is isolated as a foreigner.

Power and Control Dynamics

The unstable nature of authority demonstrated in both works, where Victor becomes a slave to his creation and Medea transforms from a helpless exile into a dominant manipulator of Creon and Jason.

Patriarchal Structures

Social systems of male authority exposed in both texts, portrayed through passive female victims in Frankenstein and Medea's violent challenge to female oppression in Medea.

Dangerous Knowledge

Intellectual ambition or strategic intelligence detached from ethical responsibility, represented by Victor's pursuit of the secrets of creation and Medea's calculated schemes for revenge.

Passion vs. Reason

The overwhelming of rational thought by intense emotion, captured in Medea's declaration that 'my passion is master of my reason' (page 78, line 1078) and Victor's obsessive pursuit of creation and vengeance.

Subjective Justice

The blurring of moral boundaries where retribution is rationalised by suffering, such as Medea framing child murder as a 'terrible yet necessary deed!' (page 82, line 1243) and the Creature viewing revenge as justice for abandonment.