Adam, Prometheus & Faust

“Adam and the Fall provide a metaphor for the movement from innocence into consciousness and conscience in young men and women of the modern world; Prometheus as the culture-bringing hero is appropriated as the ambivalent image for a Marxist society pursuing and then questioning its technological prowess; and Faust exemplifies a modern capitalist society willing to seal a pact with evil in the quest for knowledge and its power. The modifications of the myth, in sum, provide a key to the anxieties and hopes of the society that recognizes itself in the mythic model.”

The sin of knowledge: ancient themes and modern variations.
By Theodore Ziolkowski. P. 72.