Looks of Sympathy and Love: Seeking Miltonic Companionship in Frankenstein and The Truman Show

This article argues that both Mary Shelley’s gothic novel Frankenstein (1818, 1831) and Peter Weir’s 1998 film The Truman Show draw on Miltonic companionship to address broad philosophical issues and to undergird their critiques of, respectively, the overreaching male Romantic ego and mindless consumerism prompted by mass media. In Paradise Lost, disruptions of the looks of sympathy and love that characterize Edenic companionship are linked with the fall into knowledge. Neglecting his own family, Shelley’s solipsistic Frankenstein makes a physically abhorrent Creature; when Frankenstein, in turn, denies the lonely Creature companionship, he dooms his family, the Creature, and himself. In The Truman Show, the quest for Miltonic companionship leads directly to a fall into knowledge. Drawing on both Milton and Shelley, Weir shows how Truman Burbank, the unwitting star of a reality television series, comes to discover the truth and flee a false Eden through his search for his true Eve, Sylvia. While both Frankenstein and The Truman Show might seem to challenge Milton, the stress on companionship ultimately affirms core Miltonic values.