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The Dangers Of Knowledge In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

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The Dangers of Knowledge Frankenstein, a novel written by Mary Shelley, is notoriously accredited for its development and implication of multiple themes. Set in the 1700’s, Frankenstein is a gothic fiction telling of isolation, knowledge, and nature. The biggest of these being knowledge and inevitably its consequences. With knowledge comes question; What poses the most danger? The knowledge itself, or the journey to gain information? Shelley creates an overlying theme of knowledge and the dangers associated with it by using allusion and development of her characters Victor Frankenstein, Robert Walton, and the Creature. One of the biggest ways Shelley executes the theme of knowledge and its consequences is through allusion. Shelley alludes …show more content…

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). A direct result of his search for knowledge is his burden of the Creature, a hideous monster who eventually becomes evil, cold, and a heartless …show more content…

As Frank Herbert once said: “ Too much knowledge never makes for simple decisions.” This reigns true not only in Frankenstein, But also in everyday life. Coincidentally, learning too much can bring misery and dangers into your life. We can see this in scientists, like Victor, they learn too much knowledge and become mad, crazy, hurtful people. Knowledge like most things is good in moderation, when knowing too much, we become people who are darker and more wretched than our original

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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.

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In Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein (1818), Shelley shows her audience that while acquiring knowledge leads to survival for the Creature and power for Victor Frankenstein, the path to obtain this knowledge leads to the destruction of one’s self. Education and knowledge have major negative effects on both of the characters’ attitude, perception, and decisions. The life experiences of each character is dependent on the amount of knowledge that the character possesses. Knowledge gives Victor Frankenstein a superiority complex, and it changes the Creature’s perspective of the world and the people in it. The Creature, like a baby, is brought into the world with no prior knowledge of how society behaves.

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