Mary Shelley's Curiosity Character Analysis

Curiosity has the ability to hypnotize an individual to search for answers in uncharted or unauthorized territory. This search can place the individual on a long journey in order to find the desired information. Through trials and experiments, the individual may or may not discover the knowledge they were seeking. Nonetheless, this pursuit typically ends in a catastrophe including the individual or the loved ones of the individual. Although there are many contributing factors to disasters that may occur in one’s life, many of them can be connected to curiosity. The destructive effects of a flicker of curiosity in a person’s brain in seen throughout Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. For the duration of the book the reader is shown Victor Frankenstein’s

Consequently, the monster’s curiosity for human nature also leads to detrimental effects on his life. After the monster is first abandoned by his creator, Victor Frankenstein, he eventually attempts to learn the ways of human society. His attempts at assimilation are seen when he says, “I improved, however, sensibly in this science, but not sufficiently to follow up any kind of conversation, although I applied my whole mind to the endeavour, for I easily perceived that, although I eagerly longed to discover myself to the cottagers, I ought not to make the attempt until I had first become master of their language…” (Shelley 101). The monster learned about the human’s way of life through watching a group of people living in a cottage. He was curious about their culture so he stayed nearby and listened to their cultures in order to learn their ways. He soon became attached to the cottagers and their ways of life which is noted by Lorri Nandrea when she writes, “The monster’s own pleasurable attraction to the family he watches gives way to such a desire, here entwined with a desire for knowledge, and hence becomes active, ‘motivated’ curiosity” (Nandrea). The monster was curious about the human’s way of life. Watching and developing a bond with the family caused the monster to gain knowledge but it also caused him to be disappointed when they ostracized for his appearance. So, the monster’s natural curiosity allowed him to learn the ways of humans but he also faced the discrimination of