The Symbolism Of Knowledge In Mary Shelly's Frankenstein

Knowledge is something that everyone has. Different people have different amounts of knowledge on different subjects. Someone could know every rule in every sport and others can know everything there is to know about grammar. Though most knowledge is considered good, sometimes there's things that were better off not knowing. One prime example of this is in Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. This text represents how knowledge can sometimes be a curse, even though people are told that all knowledge is useful. Most knowledge is good, but there is also some bad knowledge and is that falls into the wrong hands bad things can become of that knowledge.

One instance of this is when the Creature gets a hold of the book Paradise Lost and reads it as a historical novel rather than fiction. As he reads he begins to realize that he is alone and begins to be jealous and resent Adam because Adam was created as this perfect creature who was happy and protected by the hand of God and the creature was left helpless and alone by his creator, Victor Frankenstein. By

He ends up becoming obsessed with this and ultimately finds a way to bring back someone from the dead. With the knowledge gained from his experiment Victor realizes that he created a monster and leaves the creature on it's own. He leaves all the papers he uses to create the monster in his possession, which leads to the creature finding out how he was made and just abandoned right after his creation. This ultimately leads to the monster's hatred for Victor and his thirst for revenge on Victor.

Some knowledge is good, some bad knowledge but if that knowledge falls into the hands of the wrong people the results can be disastrous. Had Victor not gotten greedy and tried to cure death he wouldn't have created a monster that would seek revenge on him. Knowledge is powerful, so be careful who gets a hold of that