The Product for the Thirst of Knowledge

The Product for the Thirst of Knowledge

  • Submitted By: jarrettDEW
  • Date Submitted: 03/08/2009 2:49 PM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 1237
  • Page: 5
  • Views: 1

In modern day society, the relentless search for knowledge seems to have no bounds, with new inventions and more progress being made in all areas every day. It is indefinitely human instinct to want to understand things that go on in the earth around oneself. However, sometimes pushing the envelope in the area of knowledge may not be the best idea. Humans should understand that their power is limited; they cannot be held with the same importance as an omnipotent power. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Victor’s own creation, a product of his thirst for knowledge, turns his own life upside down by killing of his own family and making Victor miserable.
Even from a young age, Victor puts learning as his top priority, “[he was] turned not towards childish pursuits, but an eager desire to learn.” (39). Mary Shelley creates Victor to have an enthralling passion for education over simple worldly pleasures, foreshadowing what to expect in his lifetime. Whenever Frankenstein meets his professors in college, it becomes obvious that Victor gets a taste of being a renowned chemist as he so desires to be. When Victor says that, “[There is so much more for him to] achieve: treading in the steps already marked, [he] will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation” (42), Victor shows that when he sets out on endeavors, he proceeds forth with all of his being. Almost like a result of the stress from the endeavors that consume him, he is often is overcome with serious illness. After he performs a small experiment on a dead frog, by electrocuting its corpse and it croaks in response he becomes sure that there is a connection between life and electricity. Victor decides that this connection with electricity and life is, “[how] our souls [are] constructed, and by such slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity or ruin” (37), the connection that he finds within living matter and electricity inspires Frankenstein to...

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