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Frankenstein Knowledge Vs Knowledge Essay

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Knowledge is like a perennial weed, if not tamed, then it can not be controlled and will become dangerous. Perennial weeds are spread by seed and if the entire root is not pulled out it can reproduce from the leftover roots which will cause the lawn to swarm in perennial weeds, unless they are tamed. Likewise, knowledge, unless people know their limits, will cause dangerous things to happen. This can be true for Mary Shelley's science fiction literature, Frankenstein, which talks about a crazy scientist, Victor, who gives life to the most abhorred being. He later encounters a captain of a ship, who has the same personality as him, passionate about his own understanding of the world around him, and Victor starts telling his tale, hopeful that …show more content…

He started wandering around the mountains and caves as his refuge. This is also where Victor was wandering near the mountains to find peace from his iniquity and from the horrors of the truth, of knowing that the creature is wandering freely, he bumps into the creature himself and the creature starts telling his tale. Halfway into the story the creature describes his hatred towards Victor's creation after reading a note he found in his creator's lab coat pocket, by exclaiming in anger, “I sickened as I read. 'Hateful day when I received life!' I exclaimed in agony. 'Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even YOU turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemblance” (Shelley, 131). This quote supports the theme of negative outcomes of dangerous knowledge because before the creature wanted to learn how to read and write in hopes to fit in with the society, and by doing this he was able to read what Victor put into his lab coat. As a consequence he began hating himself for who he was and started taking his anger out onto innocent people. As the novel continues he destroyed many families and sought revenge, as a result all of the negative inside him steered him to go down the wrong path. By killing innocent people the creature, through the knowledge he learned his personality changed and paved his way for the rest of his

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After the creature is finished explaining its story to Victor, there is a turning point in the novel. Victor realizes that he needs to take on some responsibility for his creation: “did I not as his maker, owe him all the portion of happiness that it was in my power to bestow?”(Shelley 148). Victor also thinks, “…the justice due both to him and my fellow creatures demanded of me that I should comply with his request. ”(Shelley 150). Victor is finally understanding that he needs to take on some responsibility for this creature.

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Why did you form a monster so hideous that even YOU turned from me in disgust?” (Shelley 128). Victor’s selfish pursuit of inhuman science led without regarding what he would create led to the birth of a cruel creature. Being aborted, the monster had no companionship and no one to teach him right form wrong. What the monster learned was from watching others, whether it led to good as being able to read or bad as he pick up the hatred people had for him and gave it back out.

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In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, she argues that knowledge leads to destruction when placed in the hands of a weak mind. Victor’s knowledge and godly curiosity to create life, led him to make an uncontrollable murderer. This creation was built purely out of selfishness and greed:

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Victor's fear of being known as the creator of the creature, and the creature killing his family made him more and more isolated from the world just like the creature was. Victor even said “Revenge kept me alive" (pg149) similar to the creature's “insatiable thirst for vengeance”(pg 164) which kept him alive. Victor and the monster both had a similar desire for a loving family, and neither one could have it. Victor was given a woman to marry, his mother said “I have a pretty present for my Victor - tomorrow he shall have it” (pg 18) talking about Elizabeth. The creature wanted to be given a woman to be with just as Victor had.

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In Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” Victor states, “Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, then he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow” (60). I fully support Victor’s acknowledgment and realization of how dangerous knowledge can be. Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” may have been written on a bet with other fellow writers, but Shelley was holding a mirror up to society when she wrote this terrifying tale. This essay will delve into the portrayal of knowledge and examine how it can be both a force for good and a source of destruction.

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The Curse of Knowledge The American Psychological Association, an organization supporting psychological needs, stated “During the 2020–2021 school year, more than 60% of college students met the criteria for at least one mental health problem.” While attending rigorous classes and acquiring knowledge are important and beneficial, having large amounts of homework and little personal time can cause more harm than good. In fact, many college students experience the negative side effects of the collegiate quest for understanding, such as stress and exhaustion, during their time at universities. Mary Shelley displays this concept in her novel Frankenstein by pointing out the negative effects of knowledge. The acquisition of knowledge is often seen

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As he sets out alone alone, he knows nothing of the world and is impressionable as a newborn. The Creature must learn from small bits of information he gleans from the De Lacys and history in books such as paradise lost(Shelley 112). The environment he lived in taught him everything he knew, affecting and creating his mindset. Therein lies the key difference between Victor and the Creatures childhoods, that Victor never changed from his childhood where the creature in his learning drastically changed: from a being who wanted acceptance to a being who swore “eternal vengeance to all mankind”(Shelley

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When Victor abandons him, the Creature attempts to live alone and learn how others live. The people hindered his attempts with their harsh reactions and obvious fear of the Creature. He secluded himself from society and lived in the woods near a little cottage where a family lived. For a while, he stole wood and food from them until he learned their financial hardships and then he started helping them. He observed the family and began learning through them.

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“If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search may lead us” Adlai E. Stevenson. The politician explains his perception of creativity in this quote along with its connection to ambition by relating determination and faith to the discovery of knowledge. He believes that nothing can restrict our drive to seek information when one entirely devotes himself to the pursuit. Similarly, in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein, Robert Walton, and the creature all attempt to acquire arcane knowledge at any and all costs. Their ambition drives them to take risks and even put the lives of themselves and others on the line.

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The results do not only affect them, but also the lives of the people around them. Seeking knowledge is not wrong, however, pursuing forbidden knowledge is depicted as morally wrong and destructive, both Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and John Milton’s Paradise Lost caution against transgressing natural boundaries, leading to the tragic downfall of not only the characters involved but also the society. On the topic Milton's Paradise Lost and Shelley's Frankenstein both place emphasis on the idea that knowledge is neither necessarily good nor evil, but that its morality is instead determined by how it is sought out and applied: “Knowledge, which is indispensable and inevitable in the postlapsarian world, occupies an insecure and dubious position between the extremes of ignorance and wisdom” (Tianhu Hao, 338). Knowledge is the foundation upon which human

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The idea of knowledge in the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley interprets knowledge as an evil pursuit. The knowlege is misused, due to Victor, the monster, and the interference with nature. Theses reasons are different perspectives that lead to tragedies. The novel Frankenstein identifies Victor's desire to gain knowledge as misusing it.

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He starts his own plan to for revenge against the creature, but this makes him just as beastly as the monster. Victor makes it his life goal, to make the monster pay in any way he can. He wants him to feel lonely and isolated forever. The beast takes a lot out on Victor and makes him feel exactly the way he feels

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After Justine served her trial and was put to rest, Victor began to go into shock again until his father proposed that they should go to the valley of Chamounix so that Victor would be able to return to his old self. While walking along the summit of Montanvert, Victor came across his creation, Victor began yelling and cursing the creature while the creature was asking Victor to listen to his story so that Victor may make him happy by doing him a favor. Once Victor agreed to listen, the creature began to tell his life’s tale after he ran away after Victor showed how terrified he was of his creature. The creature spoke of how he ran to the forest that was nearest to Ingolstadt, he slept near a small stream and sought food when his hunger and

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In reality, he is disgusted by the sight of his creation so he abandons it leaving it all alone in the world without any guidance and runs away to the next room. Victor himself suffered from being a social outcast and now he bestowed the same feeling onto the creature by abandoning him. By treating the creature as an outcast, “he will become wicked … divide him, a social being, from society, and you impose upon him the irresistible obligations—malevolence and selfishness” (Caldwell). Not only is Victor selfish for abandoning his creature but he is shallow as well. Instead of realizing that he achieved his goal of bringing life to an inanimate body he runs way because of how hideous it is.

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The Dangers of Knowledge Frankenstein, a novel written by Mary Shelley, is notoriously accredited for its development and implication of multiple themes. Set in the 1700’s, Frankenstein is a gothic fiction telling of isolation, knowledge, and nature. The biggest of these being knowledge and inevitably its consequences. With knowledge comes question; What poses the most danger? The knowledge itself, or the journey to gain information?

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