The Idea Of Knowledge In Frankenstein By Mary Shelley

The desire of extensive knowledge is first seen through Victor Frankenstein. At the beginning of the novel, a young boy named Victor grows up in Geneva “deeply smitten with the thirst for knowledge” (20).

Some say that knowledge can be a blessing and a curse. Others say that intelligence can only be a curse. People argue that knowledge can help mankind, while it can also can make dangerous monsters that can harm others. However, in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Victor’s intelligence is mostly seen only as a curse because it unleashes a murderer, results in his sickness, and makes him want the knowledge to be kept a secret.

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

“Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow” (Shelley 60). In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, she expresses her beliefs regarding the danger of pursuing happiness through the attainment of knowledge, because true happiness is found in the emotional connections established between people. The pursuit of knowledge is not necessarily an evil thing, but it can cause destruction when it is pursued beyond natural limits. Victor Frankenstein becomes a slave to his passion for learning in more than one way; first his life is controlled by

Knowledge can be the key to freedom or to one’s demise, depending on how one choses to act, but no matter what, gaining knowledge is rarely an easy task. Even for students who have information readily available to them, like Victor Frankenstein at the University of Ingolstadt, are constantly under the arduous task of learning. When learning has to be done by any means necessary or in secret, like Frankenstein’s monster or Fredrick Douglass, the acquisition of knowledge becomes even more daunting and makes the learner even more ardent in their pursuit. Once a person obtains knowledge, they see their surroundings for what they are and become discontent; they realize their potential and take action to change their life, which can be seen through the eyes of Victor Frankenstein, his monster, and Fredrick Douglass.

In Shelly’s ‘Frankenstein’, the theme of Knowledge is cultivated for multiple purposes. These include the effects of scientific advances, the de-mystification of nature, nature’s revenge and social relations in the romantic era. By examining knowledge in relation to the characters of Victor, Walton and the Creature it can be seen that the theme of knowledge is used a warning against the Enlightenment and a personification of the social injustices of the time.

Regarding the book, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, it shows many ways of how knowledge can be both a blessing and also a curse.

Knowledge is given to those that understand the power it holds, this power could either destroy or help one in their path to success. In Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, we see this idea being practiced by individuals in the novel. However, they are incapable of seeing the dangerous potential outcomes of misunderstanding knowledge and the power it offers, leading to their ruin. We see the suffering as a cause of knowledge through Victor Frankenstein’s creation of life, The Monster’s dream of fitting the norm, and Robert Walton’s dangerous journey to the North. The characters in Frankenstein pursuit of knowledge leads to certain destruction, showing us the potential negative outcomes of misusing knowledge.

In the real world, the power of knowledge has a real affect on human nature as it gives them a sense of the world and its surroundings. Knowledge is facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education. They are known to create separation between people, the smartest usually coming atop. While the monster and Victor’s adventures are told, the power of knowledge in Shelley’s Frankenstein are a big influence into the advancements of their actions and plot of the story because it gives a new outlook for them.

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.

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

“How dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to be greater than his nature will allow.” This quote from chapter four of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein states that maybe too much knowledge is a bad thing.

Frankenstein, by Mary Shelly, raises important questions as to how the theme of knowledge helps to explain the story. The main focus of Frankenstein is the power of knowledge and how dangerous it can be. This power is portrayed in the main characters of the novel: Victor Frankenstein and the monster. The theme of knowledge helps to answer the question as to why Victor decides to tell Walton his secret. Both of these characters reveal a passion of discovery and intellect, which Victor has made his past and Walton only his future. Their obsessions of knowledge are mirrored in one another through the journeys they take until their paths cross. Finally, the question of the concluding effect of the conversation between Walton and the creature

Human cloning would be means of degrading the character of the human race. It tests the boundaries of a humans way of being valuable and unique. Cloning a human would take away a person's identity. All humans are guaranteed their own personality without barriers. The right to be yourself will be breached by the fact that everything you thought was yours will be given to back someone else's genetic identity. It's important to know that personality is not bounded in someone's genes, but that the

Human cloning is dangerous for the clone. First of all, as seen in cloning other animals, most clones don’t survive long past birth, or even gestation. Clones that do survive may be born with abnormalities that make their lives short and painful. Cloning humans with such low rates of survival would be completely