Responsibility and The Dangers of Science in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The theme of responsibility and the dangers of science are extremely prevalent in the story. Victor does not take care of his creation, and he and the people he loved suffered as a direct result of that. Had Victor done even the littlest thing to help the creature get its feet on the ground, there might have been no harm done to anyone. Everyone around Victor felt the effects of his mistakes. There even are people who feel responsible for what happens because of Victor's actions. "One does not need to be directly responsible for an incident to receive the blame for its occurrence (Moss 118). Elizabeth feels she is responsible for William's death because she gave him the necklace that was on Justine. Victor feels responsible for the death of Justine, although he is not the one who actually killed her. Who knows what might have happened had Victor taken care of the creature like he should have. It could have lead to many different kinds of new studies and discoveries about human life and death. The recipe for immortality could have been discovered and no one would have to suffer at all.

Another part of this theme is the dangers of science. Victor knew that he was getting into a territory that had not yet been mapped. There were no other scientists who did anything in that area in the way that he did. He had nothing substantial to work off of, and it was his responsibility to know what he was getting himself into, what might happen, and what he would have to do when his experimentations were over. Just like many of the scientists today, Frankenstein was obviously not aware of what might happen and what the consequences might be.

With all of these scientific discoveries and theories being discovered and hypothesized, there was a lo...

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... to go ahead and clone a human being? He would have no real idea what would happen ethically and medically. Without doing extensive research and debating, it is impossible to tell what the outcome and consequences of that outcome will be. (Ko 28-32)

The relevance of a theme in a novel is one sure way of testing its value to society. In order for one to have a lasting effect on society, its theme must be applicable to the aspects of society in every time period, from when the book was written, up until the current time period of the reader. As a prime example of this, Frankenstein has a theme that carries much importance to the author's time, and the time of the reader. Responsibility in science and the danger of that is a theme that can be applied to several different topics within the science world, from Mary Shelly's time, all of the way up until our time today.