Good Versus Knowledge

Julia Sandoval
Dr. Johns
ENGCMP 0200
January 17, 2009

The idea of good versus evil has long been explored. These two extremes have especially and most specifically been associated with the creation of man. Created as a human with a divine connection to God, Adam was made for the prospect of good. He lived a good life in paradise with his counterpart, Eve, but once he tasted of the fruit of knowledge, or evil as it has also been expressed, his life in paradise and connection with his creator was terminated and he lived his life with hardships and sin. Influenced by the innate desire for knowledge, Adam could not resist the temptation to become an equal to his creator and disregard everything that he had learned and promised initially. In Mary Shelley’s work Frankenstein, she develops the character Victor Frankenstein in such a way that, in his innate quest for knowledge and to be somewhat of an equal to the divine creator, he delves into a world of evil generated by this very pursuit. Though at the same time, in his effort to stop the beast and prevent further turmoil, his evilness is exempted and his goodness shines through.
Victor Frankenstein was a man inspired by the laws of nature and the fundamentals of science. From a young age he excited himself with the research and philosophies of Agrippa, Magnus, and Paracelsus. From these men sparked his interest in electricity. Upon seeing the effects of lightning on a tree, Victor found the true power of this enigmatic phenomenon. “We found the tree shattered in a singular manner. It was not splintered by the shock, but entirely reduced to thin ribbons of wood. I never beheld anything so utterly destroyed” (Shelley 42). Victor was amazed by the power of one single bolt of electricity. It had the capabilities to destroy something so large, to such a reduced state. With this he devoted his studies not to natural science, but to the unnatural: the science that in his day was then already deemed impractical and erroneous. It was here that he decided that his quest for knowledge would be in “the spirit of good” (Shelley 43), yet he did not anticipate the horrors that would come.
His pursuit of knowledge consisted of thorough examination of anatomy and chemistry. He examined the bodies of the deceased with much apathy and took little heed to the desecration and disrespect he was paying to the dead. This is not surprising, given his atheistic upbringing. He was never religious and never knew the consequences or to what extent his endeavors might backfire. His greedy and incessant pursuit of creating life was the first example of the evil that had grown inside him. “A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me” (Shelley 55). His sole desire was to be god-like to this new race.
One cannot say that Victor Frankenstein is evil purely because he yearned to be superior in his capabilities concerning life and death. In his pursuit to take a deceased body and shock life into it, he found the meaning of it. As already mentioned, he was, in the most basic assumption, an atheist; he gave little thought to what life would be like without a soul. He created a being that was unlike the human form yet capable still of human emotion and thought processes. In his second attempt to give life to female and dead body, he refrained and terminated the project because he realized that there would be a very probable chance that the female would not promise to avoid human interaction as the male did. Also, it would be inevitable that the demons would want to reproduce; thus inflicting greater danger to the human race.
For all the instances that Victor Frankenstein appears to be a malignant and evil man, he does perform virtuous actions. He holds himself responsible for the actions of his creation and feels personal guilt after the death of his younger brother William, and the death resulting from the accusation and incarceration of Justine. “I wished to see him (the monster) again, that I might wreak the utmost extent of abhorrence on his head, and avenge the deaths of William and Justine” (Shelley 95). Upon hearing the monster say, “I will be with you on your wedding night” (Shelley 173), he ultimately decides to battle the monster; unfortunately, he had misunderstood the monster’s true intentions and was horrified to find his beloved Elizabeth dead on the night he had indeed been dreading. Following the death of Elizabeth, yet another life is taken; his father dies a few days later due to shock. The goodness and selflessness of Victor is now completely present; be it because of a psychological obsession or a true act of avengement, he swears to devote his life to destroying the monster once and for all.
When Victor does die, it is aboard the ship with Captain Walton. He dies without successfully eliminating the monster and his wrath from the world. But in dying, the monster returns to his maker, weeping, and vows to never inflict pain on mankind again. By his action of dying the final product is in fact what he had aimed to do while living. The monster goes off to die alone, in an act that he deems self-sacrificial. So it is by dying that Victor stopped the monster. His final action brought good; and despite the lives that were taken because of his creation, he did successfully avenge the deaths of those whom he loved.

Works Cited
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. London: Penguin Books, 1992.