In the novel, Frankenstein, Mary Shelly is not trying to reinforce the biblical thought of a forbidden knowledge, but is rather introducing the thought that science is capable of being very dangerous if it becomes divided from humanity. The reason that it could be conceived that Mary Shelly is reinforcing the idea of forbidden knowledge is because of the constant statements that Victor Frankenstein makes about how dangerous the acquirement of knowledge is. For example he stated "how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow" (p. 81). These statements show that knowledge is dangerous, but it is other statements made by Walton, Victor Frankenstein, and the creature that make up Mary Shelly's main argument that the acquirement of knowledge without the consideration of humanity is the true danger, not the actual pursuit of knowledge.

Mary Shelly first showed the importance of the combination of humanity and knowledge through Walton when he wrote home to his sister claiming that he was missing something very important from his life.

Walton knew that the absence of a friend would cause him much suffering and felt it "as a most severe evil" (p. 52). A friend would be capable of aiding Walton on his voyage and together they could benefit from one another's knowledge. Walton stated "[how] would such a friend repair the faults of [himself]" (p.53). In other words, for Walton, the absence of a friend would damage the connection of humanity and knowledge on his voyage to the north and would cause him much damage. Walton saw a friend as the connection to humanity because he would be able to converse with this friend and gain a different perspective on his own opinions (p. 53). After all if Walton was to take only his opinion into consideration on his voyage, he might could lose sight of other people and only care about the end result of his voyage, separating the pursuit of knowledge from humanity.

The creature tried to learn humanity without human intervention, and failed in it's attempt to integrate itself in society. Victor's creation was chased out of a village with stones (p. 134), run away from (p. 133), and even beaten from a household which it observed and secretly aided for months (p. 162-163). It tried to independently bring itself into humanity and learn the ways of humanity. The pursuit of knowledge for the creature was the actual pursuit of humanity, but because there was no human intervention aiding the creature, it was forced to attempt it's pursuit of knowledge be itself. This caused the creature to be torn away from humanity. The creature "declared everlasting war against [humans], and, more that all, against [the man] who had formed [him], and sent [him] forth to [his] insupportable misery" (p. 164). Because the creature was forced to attempt the pursuit of knowledge by itself it failed utterly and turned it's hatred and anger on humanity.

Mary Shelly

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Approximate Word count = 1255
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)