Loss Of Knowledge In Frankenstein

The novel Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley is a horror filled book produced during the Romantic era. The novel is full of romantic ideals of Shelley’s time and is also filled with many themes that show throughout the story. The theme that shows itself through the entire novel, along with other literary elements, reflects the culture in which it was created. The theme of the novel is the theme of the danger that comes with knowledge. Victor, through the whole novel, must make decisions on how he uses his knowledge and faces the consequences that come with his decisions. Mary Shelley starts the novel off with a preface to the actual story. This includes four letters written by Robert Walton to his sister back in England. In the letters,

During this period, Walton decides to go out and explore. On their exploration, they see a human life figure sledding on the ice and decide to follow it. They soon lose track of the figure and go back to the ship, finding a man trapped on the ice with a sled. They rescue him and find out that he is Victor Frankenstein. Walton befriends him and tells him of his desire to push the boundaries of human capabilities. Frankenstein replies with his life story and how he desired to push the boundaries as well. Victor starts off talking about his childhood in Geneva. His parents adopted a girl named Elizabeth, who was to be Victor’s wife. Growing up he read books about the ancient study of alchemy and idolized many alchemists. Soon his mother became ill and her dying wishes were for Victor to go to college and for Victor and Elizabeth to be married. He decided to go to college in Ingolstadt where he studied natural philosophy and read up on alchemy, which encouraged his desire to create life. After two years in Ingolstadt, he discovers the secrete to life. He soon begins to fulfill his desire and creates his monster. He is horrified by his creature and becomes ill from working on his monster nonstop. His best

The death of William is blamed on Justine and she is executed. In anguish, Victor retreats to the mountains, where he finds the monster, who at this point has learned how to talk and tells Victor his life story. The monster fled Geneva and setup a home in the mountains near a cottage. The monster learns everything he knows by spying on the cottagers and soon grows attached to them. He decided that he would try to make friends with them, but they were frightened by him and ran off. The monster pleads with Victor to make him a companion to void his loneliness. At first Victor agrees with the Monsters plead and isolates himself on a small island off Scotland where he begins his work. In the middle of his second creation, the monster had followed him to Scotland and looked in on him one night to see the progress. Seeing the monster, Victor changes his mind and decides to destroy his second creation. He takes the body out into the middle of the water and dumps the body. The monster seeing Victor do this swears revenge on him. Later in the morning, he finds that his friend, Henry, was murdered. After being accused of murdering Henry,