The Postmodern Prometheus Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, raises many ethical questions relevant to today's society. In the novel, Victor Frankenstein is portrayed as God as he is able to create a new species by reanimating dead tissue. Today, scientists are not able to perform imaginary experiments such as bringing the dead back to life, but they are capable of performing other serious experiments such as, for example, cloning organisms. Cloning and organ growth, a branch of cloning, are scientific breakthroughs achieved through acts of utilitarianism: helping patients achieve happiness through “desired pleasure and the absence of pain” (Cahn, 2011, p.93 ) through the replacement of organs and replicating organisms for other purposes. In the introduction of Frankenstein, the first four letters are records of Captain Robert Walton's journey to the North Pole written to his sister Margaret, where he encounters a frozen and weak Victor Frankenstein in search of his beast of a. creation. After recovering from the harsh conditions, Victor "then told [Captain Robert] that he would begin his tale the next day when [he] should be at ease" (Shelley, 1818, p.18), recounting his entire miserable life in Walton. Victor begins by stating his jovial childhood growing up in Geneva, where “his mother's caresses and [his] father's smile of benevolent pleasure as she looked at him are [his] earliest memories” (Shelley, 1818, p.22). The turning point in Victor's life occurs when at the age of 15 he witnesses “a violent and terrible thunderstorm” (Shelley, 1818, p.29) involving lightning striking and shattering an oak tree; he “never saw anything so completely destroyed” (Shelley, 1818, p.29). Before moving on to… the center of the paper… medical purposes where “cloned embryos are sometimes destroyed to create stem cells” (Foht 2013). Reproductive cloning is simply cloning for the purpose of producing a human being, which “raises the specter of eugenic control of human reproduction and the pursuit of extreme control over their children by parents who would seek to define in advance the precise genetic properties of their children." offspring” (Foht 2013). Cloning also causes the child to lack a genetic mother or father created by an egg donor and requires a gestational surrogate to conceive the child (Foht 2013). Many disapprove of this practice because the cloned child would lack the healthy and normal relationship between the parents, both the biological and social factors of the relationship. There are enough physical, mental and social problems among foster and homeless children, and having cloned children would add to the list.