The Intangibility Of Knowledge In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Monstrosity is created through the pursuit of knowledge and attained by people most obsessed with the unknown. Knowledge is a force to be reckoned with not only is it not able to be taken away, but it also can lead to the demise of a person. The intangibility of knowledge plays a major role in the development of individuals trying to create and discover the unknown through the use of experiments. Also, knowledge is able to be used as a weapon due to the fact that it is nonreplicable. Victor Frankenstein subsequently discovered this key characteristic of knowledge when he had just begun to experiment with the creation of life. He saw the absolute power he could establish over his own research and ultimately abused that power. Frankenstein’s power can be paralleled to that of …show more content…
Similarly Frankenstein knew that tampering with nature would have its adverse corollaries. Victor allowed his own manipulated and inhuman mind develop a creature unfit for the world he lived in. Mary Shelley uses Victor’s character to show the perspective of a lonely scientist who was capable of losing humanity through the creation of life. This irony allows the readers to see Victor as the true monster who sacrificed his humanity for the advancement of scientific research, while the monster created is waning in a life of social injustice and insecurity. The monster possesses monstrosities similar to Victor due to the fact that Victor would chastise the monster for being so repugnant. The monster understands his behavior is subjective to his environment when he says, “I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other” (Shelley