Science Without A Conscience In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

In order to be successful, knowledge is a key factor. For centuries people have gone to school to study math, history, literature, and science. While studying science is beneficial, it can hold consequences if morals and ethics are not applied. In the past, and even today, humans have encountered what science without a conscience can lead to. In Frankenstein, a cautionary tale by Mary Shelley, the reader is given a more extreme example that proves science has boundaries and shows many consequences without responsibility and ethics. In the beginning, Victor Frankenstein grew up eager for knowledge and a longing to learn. He studied diligently and the result was a fascination with life and death, “the genius that [had] regulated [his] fate (pg 22).” . Over his life, he developed a “God-complex” and set out to create life. Frankenstein did so without considering basic ethics and in his mind “life and death appeared to [him] ideal bounds, which [he] should first break through (pg 33).” His pride and desire to control the very nature of life ruled his life for years, driving him into an obsession. Deep down, he know his work was immoral, but “who shall conceive the horrors of [his] secret toil, as [he] dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave, or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay (pg 33).” His

At first, he was fearful of the creature, but after the death of his young brother, William, he came to a conclusion. “Two years had now nearly elapsed since the night on which he first received life; and was this is first crime (pg 50)?” Frankenstein had created life, and in doing so, created an independent murderer responsible for deaths of those close to him. He had been so neglectful to reason in his science, and so blind in his obsession, that the very thing he created as a compensation made his pain worse. His “eyes were insensible to the charms of nature (pg