Misuse Of Knowledge In Frankenstein

Consequently, Victor creates a monster that later ruins his life and the lives of those around him in the story mostly due to his poor variety of decisions. These facts proves that Victor’s downfall is most likely caused by his failure of balancing his ego by allowing his Id and superego get to him. In the novel

In this, Victor brought up things that no mortal should know about, such as: cloning, stem cell research, and IVFs. Examples of these were shown when the author states, “It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn… my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical… the physical secrets of the world” (43). Victor is knowingly tampering with knowledge that is essentially too great for man. He is also essentially trying to be like God, which is the original sin, and as a result, he is put in eternal despair.

Victor believed that he was doing a greater good for humankind when created the monster. In the original book Victor

Victor even said “Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge”. He admits that he suffered from his relentless search of knowledge.

After acquiring all the new knowledge, he should know that this is a bad idea but continues anyway. This suggests that knowledge is not rightly learned through books but needs to be learned through experience. This leads to his hatred of humans and the killing of many of Victor’s friends and family. The monster is flooded with information after reading these books. It would be assumed that the more information that the creature learns, the less likely he would be to kill since he is closer to a human with all his new

All three characters are on a search for knowledge and it plays a major part in their life and more importantly their fate. Here we can see both the journey and the end result, knowledge, posing danger. Victor Frankenstein is a perfect example of the consequences of knowledge. Victor sees the most loss and sadness associated with knowledge. He searches for the answers to create life and goes beyond normal human realm to inquire on them; “It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance ... or, in it highest sense, the physical secrets of the world” (21).

Knowledge can be Blessings and Curse A teenage girl Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein in the 18th century. A Gothic novel Frankenstein deals with two genres, Gothicism and science fiction. Victor, one of Mary Shelly’s characters represents man’s pursuit of knowledge which ultimately leads towards the path of destruction while another character Robert Walton implemented his knowledge wisely to get benefits for the society. Mary is indicating to the society that mankind has to pay full attention to science and scientific innovations in order to avoid the catastrophic events due to misuse of knowledge.

The power of knowledge can be a dangerous thing. However, it is not always the content or amount of knowledge that is dangerous. It is the person behind that knowledge that has the potential to bring danger to society. No tale represents this better than Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein. Monsters and myths can be scary or frightening to young children.

He uses the little that he knows to fuel his hatred towards humans and his creator. This shows the exponential growth of the problems that Victor has created as a result of his desire for knowledge. Not only did he create the destructive monster, but now the monster is using a hunger for knowledge, the very thing that created it, to do even more damage. This root cause is linked to everything that is causing Victor’s suffering. The monster also compares his relationship to Victor to that of God and Adam, wishing that he had the same supplication to his creator that Adam did, “I remembered Adam’s supplication to his creator.

“If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search may lead us” Adlai E. Stevenson. The politician explains his perception of creativity in this quote along with its connection to ambition by relating determination and faith to the discovery of knowledge. He believes that nothing can restrict our drive to seek information when one entirely devotes himself to the pursuit. Similarly, in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein, Robert Walton, and the creature all attempt to acquire arcane knowledge at any and all costs. Their ambition drives them to take risks and even put the lives of themselves and others on the line.

Knowledge is power and power is what leads to self destruction of Victor Frankenstein; an easily influenced man who sows he is not the male figure he wants to be. Victor lived a simple life, starting as a child who has everything he possibly could possibly want; a family, a house, an above all happiness. However, it all alter when he loses his mother, the traumatic event causes the family to switch gear and face he heart ache to something else. Escapism through knowledge is what led Victor's secrecy. " The world was to me to secret which I desire to divine, curiosity, earnest research to learn hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can remember.

It is another liability that he brought onto himself. First, Victor, being a scientist, should have been aware of the precautions of creating a new life. He did not think of the aftermath that the monster might create. For example, it is stated, “The death of William, the execution of Justine, the murder of Clerval, and lastly of my wife… my father… he died in my arms” (87). Additionally, everyone that Victor ever cared about or loved died because of the creature murdering them.

Victor became eager to learn and master the secret to life, he was fascinated by the human frame, and how to manipulate and control it. However this obsession became more self-fulfillment than social utility, which ended up being his downfall. The creature had intellectual curiosity when it came to his self guided education. He was forced to learn to survive, how to fend for himself, he also learned the dangers of the world. The creature had learned the majority of his knowledge through mimicking the De Lacey family.

The creation was so powerful in fact that Victor, its own creator, was even horrified by it. One of the questions Victor asks himself is “Had I right, for my own benefit, to inflict this curse upon everlasting generations” (Shelley 220)? This is a good foreshadowing of what was to come of technology in the future. It sets the idea that technology has a long term effect on the world, and those who created it are the ones who must integrated it wisely into society. Victor reflects on the hvac the creation has caused in his life and feels guilty that “future ages might curse me as their pest, whose selfishness had not hesitated to buy its own peace at the price, perhaps, of the existence of the whole human race” (Shelley 220).

Victor wanted to put use of the skills that he has, “Though increased knowledge of the world and new possibilities alone cannot do harm, they have the potential to do serious damage through their application into technology–there’s a fine line between achieving technological breakthroughs and playing god” (Bontrager). The execution of his skills is where he went wrong. If he had done a different project with the same base knowledge, then he would not be playing god. He could have been happy and successful but instead