After the Spark: Promethean Authority, Abandoned Creation, and the Ethics of Responsibility in Frankenstein

This conceptual paper examines Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus through the original framework of Promethean Authority: the conversion of exceptional creative or technological capability into self-authorized power without continuing responsibility for the vulnerable beings or consequences produced. Through a theory-informed close reading of the 1818 text, with the 1831 revision treated as a distinct interpretive context, the paper introduces the Creator-Continuance Principle, relational monstrosity, retained agency, and five mechanisms of Promethean failure: aspirational self-authorization, secret production, asymmetrical creation, abandonment at emergence, and responsibility displacement. The paper positions Victor Frankenstein’s defining failure not simply in creating life, but in abandoning the continuing ethical obligations generated by creation. It distinguishes capability from legitimate authority, explains how responsibility may be relationally distributed without excusing intentional harm, and proposes responsible creation as an ethical countermodel based on recognition, care, truthful orientation, independent oversight, testimony, repair, and movement toward agency. The study places Frankenstein in conversation with Promethean mythology, technological ethics, destructive leadership, artificial life, metaphysical uncertainty, and Mythotechnic Fiction. It establishes Promethean Authority as the first archetypal domain in the developing Unified Theory of Mythic Authority. Version note: Initial public release, Version 1.0.DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21430162