The Pursuit of Knowledge Can Be Dangerous Essay

The constant desire for knowledge may cause the obliteration of the relationship one has with themselves. Victor becomes obsessed with creating life, and this causes his overall health to decay. Victor has just created the malicious monster and his initial reaction is: “I

However, the results of the creation of the Creature are egregious, as the creature begins to murder people, specifically Victor’s loved ones, including his brother William upon realizing that William is related to Victor. Victor here is partially at fault in his brother’s death, as he abandoned the Creature, leaving it to terrorize the people. Though he is overwhelmingly contrite for their deaths, he neglects to admit who the true culprit is in William’s murder and allows Justine Moritz to take the blame, an example of his morally ambiguous actions. His inconsiderate actions cost Justine her life, though he feels horrible for it. Even then, he argues that the action he regrets the most—the creation of the monster—was the work of destiny, which was “too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction.” (Shelley 23) Again, Victor places blame on fate to justify his obsession with ambition that led him to create the thing he regrets the most. His failure to recognize his role in William’s, Justine’s, etc. deaths while concurrently feeling remorseful for them solidifies his status as a morally

Knowledge, a characteristic all people seek and one that provides more power than any army could provide, can be rewarding and enlightening; however, it can be disastrous as well. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the main character Victor Frankenstein learns how knowledge can lead to dangerous inventions. Victor creates a creature assembled from scavenged human parts; however, upon seeing how hideous its appearance is, he flees which leaves the monster shunned by the rest of society. The creature, tortured by solitude, begins to kill Victor’s friends and family after Victor refuses to create a companion for him and the two end up dying lonely. Knowledge can be a powerful weapon; however, Victor notes when recanting his

Victor knew that what he was doing was hurting his body physically and mentally, “My labors would soon end, and I believe that exercise and amusement would then drive away incipient disease” (Shelley 42) Victor felt this way when he was in the midst of the creation of his monster. Victor knows that his decisions were hindering his body and his ruining his limited time that Victor has on this Earth. The hindering of someone’s body and wasting of time is going to be a direct result of Victor’s demise. The actual creation of the monster also took a toll on Victor; Victor describes the monster by saying “No moral could support the horror of that countenance. A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch” (Shelley 44) Another example of Victor’s description of the creation of the monster the night before “I trembled exclusively; I could not endure to think of, and far less to allude to, the occurrences of the preceding night” (Shelley 46) Even the next day, after the monster was created, Victor still was hurt by the creation of the monster which then led to Victor being very sick, only to be nursed back to health by Clerval. All of this could have been avoided by Victor if he would have not of created the monster. But because Victor decided to create the monster, the consequences of these actions were the ultimate demise of Victor with the person responsible for the demise being victor

The monster has no relationship with Victor besides a need for revenge. When Victor created the monster, he looked at him in disgust. He abandoned his creation after looking at the creation with horror. This feels the monster with loneliness and rage, so he goes and lives on Felix’s farm. However, he realizes how alone he is, so he returns to Frankenstein and demands a female partner. He promises to cease all relations with his creator if he can give him a mate. Victor reluctantly agrees and builds a bride for the fiend he created. However, he destroys the female and dumps the body in the lake, much to the anger of the monster, shown when he states “Shall each man,” cried he, “find a wife for his bosom, and each beast have his mate, and I be alone?”

Victor had a friend named Henry. After a friendless monster killed him, Victor, then became friendless too. “I saw the lifeless form of Henry Clerval stretched before me.” (Shelly 223) The monster killed Henry because Victor promises to make the monster a partner. At the last moment, Victor decided to not finish the partner. Then Victor destroys the partner and the monster gets really mad. After you read that part of the story you should always keep in mind to always keep your promise. If you don't something bad might happen. Henry was the only main friend to take care of Victor when he got sick. He was his family when his main family was absent. The next paragraph is going to connect with Catherine losing her friend Isabella but, it is not as painful as Victor.

Victor’s driving, obsessive ambition ruined his life and led to his own death and the murder of his loved ones. Illustrate how ambition affects not only Victor and Robert Walton, but also the creature in Frankenstein.

Victor endangers people by not warning them about the creature. When Henry Clerval arrives in Ingolstadt, Victor explains his haggard appearance by telling him that he has been too “deeply engaged in one occupation” (88) to allow himself sufficient rest. He does not tell Henry any details about this occupation because he cannot bear to think about his creature. When Victor invites Henry to his apartment, he “[dreads] to behold this monster; but [he fears] still more that Henry should see him” (88). This shows that he is more concerned about Henry finding out how he has been spending his time than he is about his own safety. He does not want to tell his secret to his very close friend. For this reason, Victor makes Henry wait at the bottom of the stairs while he checks his apartment for the creature. Shortly after they enter the apartment, Victor becomes ill. His illness lasts several months. Since he is the only person who knows about the creature’s existence, there is nobody who can search for it while he is ill. During Victor’s illness, William Frankenstein, his youngest brother, is murdered by the monster. Although the

In the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, we discover that the search for now knowledge has a good and a bad side. Suffering is something we all go through at some point. We try to avoid it but our search for knowledge will always lead to suffering. In Frankenstein Victor had set out on a search for knowledge, he was relentless. His search consumed all his time, destroyed relationships, and lead to the death of not only himself but his friends and family. All of those negative effects originated from the monster Victor had created on his search for knowledge. Although Victor may have achieved his end goal, at what cost did this come to? Victor’s search

After a meeting at the glacier, a deal was proposed to Victor. If he created the monster a mate, then the monster would disappear for good. Victor came very close to completing the female mate but did not complete it. “The wretch saw me destroy the creature on whose future existence he depended on for happiness, and with a howl of devilish despair and revenge, withdrew” (Shelly 145). One night Victor was working on the new creature but was having second thoughts about it. When he saw the creature with an ugly grin on his face peeking through the window, he destroyed the new creature. After abandoning the creature after his creation, he got its hopes up and nearly completed the monster only to destroy it. I can emphasize what it is like to be the monster in that situation.

Rather than just killing Victor, however, the monster decides to kill his loved ones. The death of a potential companion in the world incites the monster to create even more death.

The monster is not faultless for the awful things that he has done. He kills three of the people that his creator was very close to including his adopted sister Elizabeth. Losing these people is very hard on Victor. The loss makes Victor so distraught that, “he calls the spirits of the dead” (179) to help him make the monster feel the pain of loss that he feels. In addition to killing those close to Victor, the monster destroys the house of the De Lacey’s with fire and then “dances with fury around the devoted cottage (123). Additionally, the monster appears to like the trouble and anguish that he is able to trigger in Victor: “your sufferings will satisfy my everlasting hatred” (181), the monster writes

I have strangled the innocent as they slept, and grasped to death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing"(155). By eliminating Victor’s friends and family, the monster completes this plan of turning Victor’s life into one similar to his own. Depriving one of their family and friends, something which is done by both Victor and the monster, is a truly horrible deed which makes Victor’s creation a true "monster".

The monster believed that Victor would accept him, but after he realized that not only did Victor not want to assume his position in the monster’s life, but society also rejected him, it became a transitory thought, and instead became replaced with his bloodthirst towards Victor and his loved ones, which he knew would hurt way worse than just killing him; making him lonely like himself. Both Victor and the monster partook in horrid acts, in which held horrendous actions; the main one being Victor creating the monster in the first place which in result caused the both of them heartbreak, loneliness, and pain. If Victor wouldn’t have created the monster, then his life would not be filled with so much grief and emptiness; Victor is the true monster, although they are both the primal protagonists as much as they are the antagonists because of the display of the emotions they both portray as lamenting humans/monsters, and the power they give to nature in order to destroy one another. Victor used nature to his advantage, although it was wrong; Victor used nature to create and destroy the monster; he used the

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.