Gabrielle Cuebas
Dr. Koh ENG 101
October 21, 2008
Essay #2
Mary Shelley’s novel,
Frankenstein, conveys key themes that are essential to science and ethics of this day and age. In her novel, Shelley introduces Dr. Victor
Frankenstein who is an aspiring scientist throughout his life. The event of his mother’s death led him to the pursuit of discovering the secret of life. Shelley expresses the necessity of seeking knowledge and the dangers that can arise from seeking knowledge beyond human limitations. She also represents these themes through the relationship between Victor and his creation, expressing how the power gained from Victor’s newfound knowledge got out of control.
Victor Frankenstein was an intelligent, rational scientist. He became interested in science since his youth and went to the University of Ingolstadt to pursue his career
(Shelley 28). He was curious about life like any other scientist. Usually there is nothing wrong with seeking knowledge because that is the only way there can be any advances in the world. Unfortunately, his mother’s death caused his curiosity to become irrational.
After all the isolation he put himself through to conduct his experiments, his creation finally came to life. Victor realized that what he thought would be a being “as complex and wonderful as a man” (54), was truly a monster in his eyes. His great passion turned into absolute fear. He did not know how to control this being and wanted nothing to do with it.
The monster escaped Victor’s lab in fear and Victor fell ill because of his fright.
The monster was quite similar to an infant being born into the world, with no sense of

direction or knowledge of his surroundings. He scared away the town’s residents because of his appearance so he was unable to communicate with anyone and was cursed and abused on the streets. Victor did nothing because he was afraid if people knew the monster was his creation they would have “looked upon it as the ravings of insanity”
(64). While this may be fiction, it is not uncommon that scientists become afraid of what their discoveries may result in, so they end up either ignoring the situation or fabricating it with false information so they can try to maintain their ethical behavior in the world’s eyes.
It seems that Victor could be a father figure to the monster, the same way scientists can be mothers or fathers to the subjects in their experiments. Once they begin an experiment, it is their responsibility. They must tend to it with proper measures and make sure the experiment is being conducted correctly. Terrible things can result from neglecting to take responsibility of one’s actions, which is obvious from the tragedy that occurred in Victor’s life. If Victor would have accepted his actions and dealt with them properly, he may have avoided a lot of misery. The monster tried so hard to make a connection with his creator and he was shunned away, so he decided to cast revenge on
Victor. He killed Victor’s brother, William, and beloved fiancée, and a girl accused of
William’s death was executed. The monster understood the concept of being lonely so he felt that Victor should suffer as well.
The relationship between Victor and his creation is very relevant to how seeking knowledge can be a dangerous path if taken too far. In this case, Victor was almost trying to play god. Although he may have discovered how to create life, it does not mean that he should have done so. What makes it worse is that he acted on such impulse that he did

not give himself time to evaluate his decisions to see if anything dangerous could happen.
He felt so empowered yet when it came to taking responsibility of his actions he did not.
It is very common in society that people take actions to satisfy their curiosity. When things go out of hand and becomes out of their control, they do not take responsibility for it and just let dangerous things happen that could have been avoided. It is important that any curiosity and experiments that are to be done be evaluated to make sure they are being done for the greatest good for people in the world.
Victor seems to be the true monster in this story because he decided to take on a task that he ended up not being able to handle. There are certain limitations of knowledge that humans should seek. Science is generally limited to things we can observe and present data for to enlighten others with important information. There are certain things people were never meant to do. When we go beyond our capabilities thing may get out of control and dangerous things can result from it. Victor Frankenstein used his abilities to satisfy his curiosity and ended up causing a lot of unnecessary pain for himself and everyone around him. Most times when things get too far no one wants to take responsibility for it and there ends up being chaos. It is important to seek knowledge to a level that provides understanding to everyone. But when it goes farther for something that will not ultimately benefit everyone else, maybe even have negative results, then we should no go past those limitations.