The Importance Of Knowledge In Frankenstein

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Shelley shows that the acquisition of knowledge can be dangerous through the characters of Victor Frankenstein, the Monster, and Robert Walton. Knowledge is a good thing to a certain extent but it can consume a person’s life and have negative affects. The unlimited quest for knowledge is a negative flaw in some humans. When Victor is a young boy, he becomes interested in science and learning after experiencing a lighting strike (Shelley 23). Years later, Victor attends college in Ingolstadt. There, he becomes engulfed in his research, consequently alienating everyone. Victor is eager to learn anything and everything he can about science, which ends badly for him. When Victor Frankenstein is telling Robert Walton his story he says, “Learn

The Creature, that Victor Frankenstein created, has a thirst for knowledge as well that ultimately causes his death. In his own way, the Monster craves learning and knowledge in the same way that Victor does. The Monster, even though he is large, has the maturity of a baby. He is naïve, young, and lost. As he becomes more “educated” he begins to create a desire to be able to speak, read, and communicate, like normal humans. As the monster is wandering about, he finds a safe place to live, his hovel, where he can observe a family, the De Lacey’s. Living near the De Lacey’s makes the creature’s desire to learn strong. He learns by watching the De Lacey’s and can soon talk and understand words. The creature begins to read literature, fueled by his want to further his knowledge, and says “ I can hardly describe the effect of these books. They produced me an infinity of new images and feelings, that sometimes raises me to ecstasy, but more frequently sink me into the lowest dejection” (Shelley 116). Acquiring knowledge is a good thing, a necessity even, but taken too far and it can become destructive. The monster