Response Paper #5: Prometheus Unbound In his work Prometheus, Percy Bysshe Shelley tries to show how Prometheus' sufferings are like those of Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost, and how Jupiter's tyranny is like what he sees as the tyranny of Milton's God. In this way, Shelly ends up creating a Christ of Satan and a Satan of God. The intriguing character of Prometheus brings about a change throughout the play. At the beginning of the play, Prometheus is described as being in great suffering and pain forever. Shelly tries to make Prometheus a character similar to Milton's Satan, but with more nobility. Prometheus is burned in a terrible hell for daring to challenge the tyranny of Heaven. He is willing to endure the furies and torments of hell rather than bow the knee before the ruler of heaven. Both Satan and Prometheus hate the God of heaven. Prometheus' hatred against Jupiter had caused Prometheus to curse Jupiter and wish him pain and suffering for inflicting pain on him. However, Shelly's description of Prometheus soon changes as he begins to pity and regret his hatred of Jupiter. “I repent: words are quick and vain; The pain is blind for a while, and mine was too. I wish that no living being suffers pain. This repentance continues even as the furies of Jupiter's wrath torment Prometheus. He has resigned himself to suffering, “Pain is my element as hate is yours” (p.810). In describing Prometheus as suffering Satan with more virtue, Shelly creates a Prometheus, in a character who is more like that of Milton's Christ, than Milton's Satan is. Like the Son of God in Book 4 of Paradise Lost, Prometheus is willing to suffer to free man from the cruelties of hatred and the slavery of Jupiter. Prometheus knows... that the paper is finished and replaced by new heavens and new earth with love, peace and freedom. Both Jupiter and Prometheus are not perfect replicas of the figures they represent. For example, Prometheus does not have the perfect righteousness of Christ. His sin is part of the cause of his current suffering. The peace and redemption it gives has the possibility of being undone if hatred returns, and there is no eternal punishment for man, only for the gods. Furthermore, unlike Satan who knows that there is God above him who possesses omnipotence, Jupiter believes himself to be truly omnipotent. These differences show us how there is no substitute for Christ's substitution for us. We can try to bear the hatred and torture of others and the guilt of our own sins alone, but we must cast all our burdens on the Lord, and He will deliver us from them and give us peace and true hope, joy and Love.