Knowledge is a typically human virtue. After all, if it weren't for humans' desire to know and master our habitat, wouldn't we still be counted among the beasts? For all the good that knowledge brings us, however, knowledge can just as easily bring pain. We discover new types of medicines to prolong our lives, but this is balanced by our awareness of our own mortality. We find new advances in technology with which to bring convenience into our lives, but these advances are counteracted by the resulting pollutions that are poisoning our world. These contrasting aspects of knowledge and its consequences were first discussed thousands of years ago by the ancient Greeks. The Titan Prometheus bestowed upon humanity the gift of knowledge, but that gift came at a price. In Frankenstein: or, A Modern Prometheus, Mary Shelley brings the ideas of Prometheus to the early 19th century by co-opting three of the central themes of the Prometheus myth: the themes of knowledge with consequences, the underlying sexism in the story of Pandora, and the use of lightning as a means of representing knowledge. A brief discussion of the Prometheus myth is warranted. There are two main myths involving Prometheus: that of Prometheus the pyrophore, who brings fire from Zeus's thunderbolt for the benefit of humanity, and that of Prometheus the plasticizer, who creates man from clay. These two main themes involving Prometheus seem disparate at first glance but upon closer examination they fit together quite well. Prometheus is both the creator and benefactor of man. Eventually, “[b]y around the second or third century AD, the two elements were fused together, so that the fire stolen by Prometheus was also… the center of the card… Integrity. 8.3 (2006): 257-270. Academic Research Premiere. Network. November 17, 2008.Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus. Mary Shelley: Frankenstein.Ed. Johanna M. Smith. 2nd ed. Case studies in contemporary criticism. Boston: Bedford-St. Martin's P, 2000. 19-189. Print. Shattuck, Roger. Forbidden knowledge: from Prometheus to pornography. New York: S. Martin's P, 1996. Print.Smith, CUM "A String of Vermicelli: Doctor Darwin's Role in the Creation of Frankenstein's Monster." Interdisciplinary scientific reviews. 32.1 (2007): 45-53.Academic Search Premiere. Network. November 17, 2008. Smith, Johanna M. "'Cooped Up' with 'Sad Trash': Domesticity and the Sciences in Frankenstein." Mary Shelley: Frankenstein. Ed. Johanna M. Smith. 2nd ed. Case studies in contemporary criticism. Boston: Bedford-St. Martin's P, 2000.313-333. Press.