Frankenstein and the Folly of Playing God: A Cautionary Tale for the Tech Age

By Paul Ponce

I recently reread Frankenstein by Mary Shelley—this time not as a bored high school student skimming for test answers, but as someone who just finished writing my own first novel about the dangers of mortals stealing fire from the gods in the age of AI. And wow. What a difference a little life (and a lot of writing) experience makes. Turns out, this book isn’t just about a creepy stitched-up science project—it’s a philosophical gut-punch wrapped in Gothic horror, and it hits harder than ever in our tech-saturated world.

Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus isn’t just a spooky classic—it’s a timeless case study in what happens when ambition outpaces responsibility. And the 1831 annotated edition I picked up—with its deep commentary, analysis questions, and literary insights—makes it painfully clear: Victor Frankenstein isn’t the tragic hero. He is the cautionary tale.

Victor is the gothic prototype of the modern tech bro: brilliant, obsessive, emotionally stunted. He isolates himself to chase glory, creates life without understanding it, and then... panics. No plan. No follow-through. Just full-on ghost mode.

Shelley’s narrative structure still stuns. With three narrators—Captain Walton, Victor, and the creature—we get layered perspectives that force us to reconsider who the real monster is. The being who longs for love and is punished for existing? Or the man who creates life and then ditches it like a failed prototype?

The creature’s evolution from hopeful to heartbroken to homicidal is one of literature’s most tragic arcs. He starts innocent, but is made monstrous by abandonment, fear, and a world that sees only ugliness. His final act of self-immolation isn’t horror—it’s grief, wasted potential, and one last flicker of conscience. Shakespeare could’ve written that ending.

And in his final confession to Walton before disappearing into the Arctic ice, I couldn’t help but think of Roy Batty in Blade Runner. “All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.” Shelley’s fingerprints are all over that scene—the creature out-humaning the human.

So yes, the Prometheus metaphor is razor-sharp. Victor steals fire from the gods to animate flesh, but his punishment isn’t divine—it’s personal. He loses everyone he loves. His so-called breakthrough becomes a legacy of ruin. Sound familiar, Silicon Valley?

The annotations in this edition dig into Gothic and Romantic themes, identity, and gender dynamics. Shelley subtly exposes how overconfident, emotionally disconnected men—with no space for empathy—steer the story straight into disaster. If more humane voices had been heard, would the ending have changed?

Today, as we race ahead with AI, biotech, and digital gods of our own design, Frankenstein feels less like fiction and more like prophecy. It’s not just about raising the dead—it’s about dodging the moral fallout of what we create.

If you haven’t read it since high school—or ever—now’s the time. This edition is a goldmine for writers, thinkers, and anyone asking what it means to be human in the machine age.

Spoiler: it’s not the creature who haunts us. It’s our reflection in his rage.