the primitive Furies of classical myth. Their most prominent realization in Greek
literature is in Aeschylus's Oresteia, where, as enacted in the third part of the
trilogy, The Eumenides, the Furies are persuaded by Athena to give over their ritual
vengeance to a new and more civilized system of justice that will henceforth regulate
human behavior. For Victor thus to invoke the Furies suggests his reversion to a primitive
bloodlust incompatible with modern civilization. Although not yet written, P. B. Shelley's
representation of the Furies in Prometheus Unbound (see I.444), as psychological agents
of self-victimization who lacerate the psyche, is wholly in accord with Mary Shelley's
conception here.