Essay On The Power Of Knowledge In Frankenstein

Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley, explores the theme of the pursuit of knowledge and scientific discovery through the main characters; Victor Frankenstein, the Creature and Robert Walton. This pursuit of knowledge drives the plot of the novel, leading Victor to create the Creature in his attempt to break down the mortal barriers that surround him and unlock the secret of life. Robert Walton’s quest for discovery leads him to the North Pole, far beyond the reach of Humans at that time. Ultimately Victor’s thirst for knowledge and scientific discovery did him more harm than good with Victor’s hatred of his creation driving him to death. Frankenstein’s message to the modern is age is simply put as “humans should not meddle in the business of the gods”. Mary Shelley’s is using Frankenstein and the actions of the characters in the novel to warn us that although we have the technology to for example, create a human being, some things are better left to nature. In our quest for knowledge we can do ourselves more harm than good. Through her novel Shelley tells us that on our path of scientific discovery there are some trails better left unexplored.

The idea of pursuing knowledge clouded Victor’s mind and when his creature is born he is shocked to discover that what he has created is far off his own expectations. Not only did the monster destroy his expectations of developing a creature that went beyond human knowledge, but it also affected his life, dignity, and fears. Victor himself admits to his own mistake when he says, “The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature...but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless honor and disgust filled my heart ” (36). Victor Frankenstein realizes what his obsession with pursuing an extensive amount of knowledge has brought him. His destiny to achieve the impossible with no regard for anyone or anything but himself shows that he is blinded by knowledge when creating the monster and is incapable to foresee the outcome of his creation. Victor’s goal was meant to improve and help humanity, but instead it leads to

It has been said that intelligence and/ or knowledge can be both a curse and a blessing. The book “Frankenstein” portrays this idea perfectly. Intelligence can be a wonderful gift that brings many great things, but at what cost? Would you seek all the knowledge in the world if you knew that it would bring you only pain and suffering? These two questions help qualify the validity of the statement that intelligence or knowledge can be both a curse and a blessing.

Victor obsession with his creation represents the dark side of ambition. By creating the monster, “darkness” follow him wherever he goes through the representation of deaths and daunting weather like lightning. After his release from prison, he saw around him “nothing but a dense and frightful darkness, penetrated by no light but the glimmer of two eyes that glared upon me” (Shelley 160). By trying to turn himself into a god through the creation of the monster, that is, the unnatural, Victor is deprived of joy and is tormented by fevers, anxiety, and stress because he had thrown nature into the state of imbalance. Rather than feeling a sense of accomplishment through his scientific achievement, he lives in fear and guilt knowing that he is the cause for the destruction of his

Knowledge plays an incredibly large part of Mary Shelly’s novel, Frankenstein. I think that Victor’s obsessive and unhealthy search for knowledge is the true cause of his suffering. Not only does he neglect his friends and family while working to create the monster he puts his own health in danger. “I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health.” In this quote we see that Victor stops at nothing to find if he would be successful with his creation. Victor has made this project such a main priority that once it is completed and the creature comes to life he does not know what to do. Since Victor has met his goals and done what he said he wanted to do he does not want to deal with the being he just created so this becomes a problem for him. We see that Victor was very troubled by this whole experience when he says, “You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been.”

Frankenstein is a book written by Mary Shelley in 1818, that is revolved around a under privileged scientist named Victor Frankenstein who manages to create a unnatural human-like being. The story was written when Shelley was in her late teen age years, and was published when she was just twenty years old. Frankenstein is filled with several different elements of the Gothic and Romantic Movement of British literature, and is considered to be one of the earliest forms of science fiction. Frankenstein is a very complicated and complex story that challenges different ethics and morals on the apparent theme of dangerous knowledge. With the mysterious experiment that Dr. Victor Frankenstein conducted, Shelly causes her reader to ultimately ask

Frankenstein, in his Faustian quest for knowledge, comes to symbolise ‘the man of science’ within the text. His family background and social position places him as a man of the enlightenment. It is therefore arguable that Frankenstein represents the empirical strand of

Within the book, Dr. Victor Frankenstein expresses the way in which knowledge has blessed him in the beginning of the story but in turn ends up resulting in his downfall.

In the novel, Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein shows the cruel karma that joins in the achievement of attaining knowledge. With countless examples to support this statement, the opinion of this reader holds strong with the opinion of Mary Shelly, that the power of knowledge, though incredibly tempting to grasp hold of tightly, can be a dangerous achievement that can lead to more destruction than it can recover.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein explores the concepts of knowledge and science and the dangers involved with the pursuit and investigation of these ideas. The novel conveys Shelley’s attitudes towards science by portraying it as having the capability to exceed the bounds of human restraint. Through the development of her protagonist Victor Frankenstein, the romantic and gothic aspects of her novel, the period of 1818 and the influences of the world she was living in that

What exactly is the pursuit of knowledge? One might say that the pursuit of knowledge is when one conducts irregular experiments and actions. One might say that the pursuit of knowledge is the process of the collecting information needed in completing that test. However, the universal truth says that one can never accumulate all the knowledge in the world. However, one might opinion that the pursuit of knowledge is a wonderful thing to have because knowledge is power. But what exactly is knowledge? Mary Shelley has her visions of the pursuit of knowledge all the way back in the 19th century. To tell her thoughts to the world, she creates the characters Victor

In the beginning of the book, Frankenstein talks to his professor about his interests in science. The professor tells Frankenstein the wonders of science, and how it has affected the world. “The ancient teachers of this science,’ said he, ‘promised impossibilities, and performed nothing. The modern masters promise very

Frankenstein said "In reading it, given very minute explanations. Through this work I obtained a cursory knowledge of history and a view of the several empires at present existing in the world; it gave me insight to manners, governments, and religion of the different nations of the Earth (3). Here when he says this he is showing that he has improved from when Dr. Frankenstein created him. Showing that he is getting smarter, that he is truly

A bat and ball cost a dollar and ten cents. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? A vast majority of the people who come across this simple question answer quickly and confidently. The answer must be 10 cents. However, while this answer seems obvious, it is wrong. The correct answer is 5 cents. Through education and increased knowledge, people begin to use mental shortcuts to almost completely skip the normal thought process. This means that people with seemingly intelligent minds often are prone to over-confidence, extreme predictions, and the planning fallacy. In Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, this same mental performance is seen in the main character, Doctor Frankenstein. Not only is he overconfident in

He is so consumed by keeping his secret safe; his loved ones are murdered as a result. For example, Henry Clervel has his life taken as an outcome of Victor’s betrayal to the creature. Victor’s failure to warn Henry creates increasing guilt which continues until the death of Elizabeth. He thinks of himself instead of logically warning his wife of the monster’s dangerous threats, “I shall be with you on your wedding-night.” (176) Right until Victor’s death, science is viewed as the only way of knowledge, as quoted, “the more fully I entered into the science, the more exclusively I pursued it for its own sake.” (77) This knowledge is ultimately used against him; the monster knows what Victor is capable of and uses his ability of creating life as a threat to make a new creature to acquaint the monster. As Victor contemplates this idea, he is also threatened by the possibility of new life being created, “… a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth” (174) which dictate his actions in destroying the wife of the creature. Knowledge ultimately consumes Victor.