Percy Bysshe Shelley considered Prometheus to be the embodiment of romantic ideals and dedicated a piece to the titan: Prometheus Unbound.

The only imaginary being resembling in any degree Prometheus, is Satan; and Prometheus is, in my judgement, a more poetical character than Satan, because, in addition to courage, and majesty, and firm and patient opposition to omnipotent force, he is susceptible of being described as exempt from the taints of ambition, envy, revenge, and a desire for personal aggrandisement […] But Prometheus is, as it were, the type of the highest perfection of moral and intellectual nature, impelled by the purest and the truest motives to the best and noblest ends.[3]

Seventy-nine years after Shelley’s work, André Gide wrote Le Prométhée mal enchainé. Gide was a French surrealist writer and Nobel Prize winner in 1947. He was also Oscar Wilde’s friend, and in this work, he was influenced by Oscar and philosophical accounts of the eighteenth-century.

With wit, the writer transposes the myth into a Parisian reality at the end of the XIX century. Prometheus is no longer man’s grand creator; he is no longer man’s saviour and the eagle is no longer an imposed punishment, rather a conscience; the torment is no longer due to the theft of fire but is linked to the nature of conscience itself: myth is deconstructed.

Consciousness is metaphorized in the nourished and torturing eagle. If in Dorian Gray’s (1980) self-portrait-declaration, Wilde proposed an outwardly fixed conscience, Gide, – perhaps driven by his Huguenot component – placed in the eagle’s owner’s flesh – a gnawing conscience, which does not in any case conceal its inner, intimate, moral origin.[4]

The story revolves around Prometheus who, while at the Opera, stops in a café.

Quand, du haut du Caucase, Prométhée eut bien éprouvé queles chaînes, tenons, camisoles, parapets et autres scrupules, somme toute, l’ankylosaient, pour changer de pose il se souleva du côté gauche, étira son bras droit et, entre quatre et cinq heures d’automne, descendit le boulevard qui mène de la Madeleine à l’Opéra.[5]

Here the protagonist is introduced to Damocles and Cocles. The two tell their stories, realising that although they are strangers they are bound together: Damocles had received an envelope containing a five hundred franc note and, not knowing who the sender was and why it had been sent, thought it was a misunderstanding. He found himself so consumed by his conscience that he was unable to spend the money.

Whereas, Cocles had been stopped on the street, a gentleman had brought him the handkerchief that he had dropped, and then handed him an envelope telling him to write down a random name and address. Cocles  gets slapped after writing down the address. The story shifts to Prometheus, who, is accused of having illegally manufactured matches, and was then imprisoned. It is in prison that Prometheus comes into contact with his conscience: if initially the magly eagle was featherless, while talking and nourishing it with his liver, the animal grew stronger while Prometheus grew weaker.

Ça! un agile! Allons donc! – regardez-le ce pauvre oiseau râpé! Ça… un aigle! Allons donc! tout au plus une conscience.[6]

Prometheus, once carried out of prison by the eagle, had decided to give a speech affirming that:

«Premier point: il fault avoir un aigle.

«Deuxième point: D’ailleurs, nouns en avons tous un.[7]

Consciousness is the book’s key point and it is precisely what Prometheus’ speech revolves around. During the narration we discover that it was he who created mankind, who gave it intellect and fire. Over the centuries man’s foolish happiness and thus the eagle’s bith. Prometheus realises that he loves the eagle but no longer mankind.

Le bonheur de l’homme décrut, décrut, et ce me fut égal: l’aigle était né. Je n’aimais plus les hommes, c’était ce qui vivait d’eux que j’aimais. C’en était fait pour moi d’une humanité sans histoire… L’histoire de l’homme,c’est l’histoire des aigles, Messieurs.[8]

The story ends by showing how one can face one’s conscience: Prometheus returns well-fed, he has in fact killed and eaten his eagle; Damocles dies instead, consumed by his conscience, of rétrécissement de la colonne an allusion to Cocles’ appearance.

The story is imbued with symbolism, the classical names as well as the evoking myth become its parodies (of the myth or meaning attributed to them). The settings anticipate the Surrealist current by juxtaposing dream and reality: prison is both a physical and mental setting.

Gide was tormented by his conscience throughout his life, he did not kill it like Prometheus, he was neither overwhelmed by it like Damocles but defied it like Cocles.

«Il n’aura donc servi à rien?» demanda-t-on. «Ne dites donc pas cela, Coclès! Sa chair nous a nourris. Quand je l’interrogeais, il ne répondait rien… Mais je le mange sans rancune: s’il m’eût fait moins souffrir il eûté témoins gras; moins gras il eûté témoins délectable.» «De sa beauté d’hier, que reste-t-il?» «J’en ai gardé toutes les plumes.»[9]