Frankenstein's Pursuit Of Knowledge And Enlightenment

Knowledge is power. This was the main principle of the Age of Enlightenment, which was the primary cultural movement for a majority of the 18th century. In the Age of Enlightenment, there was a great value being placed on reason and the advancement of the human race, specifically through the development of science and technology.

Nature was intended to be dominated by man, not the other way around. This idea concerning anthropocentrism overshadowed all cultural and intellectual discourse and it was believed that humans will advance at great speeds due to science and technology. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein argues against this main principle of Enlightenment and is highly critical of the movement’s cold, calculated approach towards the world. Shelley displays this criticism of the Age of Enlightenment and the notion that knowledge is power through, Victor Frankenstein and Captain Walton and their ruthless pursuit of knowledge and abandonment of morals for scientific discoveries.

Shelley implements foreshadowing as a cautionary device of Victor’s full acceptance of Enlightenment values.

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Towards the beginning of the novel, Victor speaks of his pursuit of employment and reflects on his faults during that time which allows him to discover what the perfect mind is. As a result of this, Victor describes the perfect mind as, “a human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind, and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquillity.” Shelley is echoing what numerous religions and philosophies preach—that peace of mind without rampant passion is the path to perfection.

Frankenstein strays away from this path of perfection and instead finds himself on a path of destruction. Further into the novel, he disregards the latter part of his sentence, letting his ‘transitory desire’ to reanimate a dead body ‘disturb his tranquility’. It is his desires and obsessions over becoming the creator of a more ‘perfect’ race of beings that results in his loss of control of himself. This uncontrolled passion or path of destruction involving the application of his scientific prowess leads to a series of chain events; the death of his brother, William, and other innocent people, and the suffering of numerous people. Victor foreshadows all of these events with his statement and warns the reader that if he controlled his passion for trying to do nature’s work—his pursuit—then none of the tragedies described in the novel would have occurred. Shelley foreshadows this to display to the reader that the Enlightenment belief that humanity could influence nature rather than be subject to the whims of Gods will only deter a human being from perfection and result in suffering.

Shelley uses the frame narration of the novel by having the story be told to a Captain Walton by Victor Frankenstein as a counter-Enlightenment tract. When Walton starts his voyage he eagerly describes how the enticements of being the first man to discover the North Pole “are sufficient enough to conquer all fear of danger or death”. Walton is beginning to stray away from the path of perfection and is quickly turning towards the path of destruction. He is blindly caught up in the brightness of his dream which makes him view any danger or death that the journey entails as something that is completely dismissive. What was once just a pursuit of knowledge is morphing into an uncontrolled passion. Walton and Victor are both examples of two men with ambitions to discover the forbidden, but Walton differs from Victor in the fact that Walton does not succumb to his hubris and this is due to Victor’s narration. For example, before Victor reaches his description of the creation he starts to see himself in Walton’s enthusiasm; “You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent sting to you, as mine has been”. Victor states this to guide as a cautionary element for Walton so that he does not go down the same path of destruction that Victor went down. In the end, Walton learns from Frankenstein’s words and gives up his ambition of discovering the Arctic and returns home safely. Shelley uses Victor as an example for the reader and Walton that attempting to pursue overreaching science that unleashes forces it cannot control should be advised against.

Shelley not only employs Walton’s and Frankenstein pursuit of knowledge as cautionary tales, but she also draws examples from the real world to warn against the hubris of science and progress. For example, when Victor is moralizing about the pursuit of knowledge, he continues by saying that, “if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved, Caesar would have spared his country; America would have been discovered more gradually; and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed.” Frankenstein is no longer just applying this idea of transitory desire to the tragic events of his life, but now to the history of the world. If men were not tempted by their passion, but rather controlled such irrational desires, then the tragedies experienced by all of the countries mentioned would not have happened. Enslavement, war, colonization, and the destruction of entire civilizations only occurred because of man’s amoral pursuits and unlawful use of knowledge. Shelley brings in these real world examples to further propel the idea that all this chaos and suffering is a result of people adopting principles from the Enlightenment.