In the text Frankenstein, the Pursuit of knowledge theme often shows up. The main character and the monster are Frankenstein, who is very willing to gain knowledge. By taking the help of the monster and Frankenstein, Mary Shelley progresses the melody of the pursuit of knowledge, by noticing the acts of the cottagers and the behavior of the monster (Shelley).
The monster is achieving knowledge by witnessing the cottagers, and by noticing this, the monster is feeling depressed and annoyed at the same time. The monster is feeling depressed and annoyed because he has realized that he is a different creature and the Cottagers will not know him. The monster states, “I cannot define to you the pain that these images imposed upon me. I tried to dismiss them, but grief only enlarged with information” (85). The monster has said that because he has gained the knowledge, which makes him more sorrowful and depressed. Although the monster understands that it is dangerous and his discomfort will keep growing, he still doesn’t stop following knowledge (Foster).
In Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster has described that all stories have a passage in which somebody or occasionally many individuals are moving on the way to a definite journey. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or the modern Prometheus, the novel is founded on precisely that, a journey. One journey is Victor Frankenstein’s seek for knowledge. Foster states that “the real reason for the quest is always self-knowledge” Victor Frankenstein is the unspoiled model of this, Frankenstein went on a journey to achievement every droplet of information that he can when he joins the University of Ingolstadt. Robert Walton is a new model of this. He begins his trip with the same confidence that Frankenstein has to achieve every bit of information that he can gain. (Chapter 7)
In Foster’s 7th chapter, he discusses fictional references to the bible. Fosters states that these biblical references in the stories assisted people and the author to stand on the joint ground. This indication is what Mary Shelley did in Frankenstein when Victor Frankenstein made his monster connecting to the creator vs. maker when God made Adam and Eve. Every time a biblical reference was prepared when the monster has requested Frankenstein to build a mate in the same way as Adam has requested God for a mate for him. “My companion must be of the same species and have the same defects. This being you must create” (Shelley `159). Chapter 9.
Foster defines that in this chapter named “It’s Greek to Me” that the use of myths is a technique for authors to plea to the person who reads if they do not trust in biblical approaches. It is in a way a much stress-free tactic to appreciate where the writer is coming from. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, she practices a more mythological method to the connection between Frankenstein and the monster. In myths, Prometheus formed man, so in this case, Frankenstein is Prometheus, and his monster is his creation; “I ardently wished to extinguish that life which I had so thoughtlessly bestowed” (Shelley 97).
In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley practices symbolism and allegory to portray the actions of the key characters and what their movements mean. In the book “How to Read Literature like a professor,” The author Thomas C. Foster questions his readers what you do you think a symbol stance for, Foster has also written “[Whatever] you think it stands for, it probably does” (97). Frankenstein comprises numerous symbols, though there are simply little symbols that back out answers the entire nine yards (Shelley).
There are specific symbols and stories that were firmly selected to back our results: Light, The bible, Alps. Water, White, and Lightning. Light: Shelley has made light as a sign on the very first sheet when Walton expresses to his sister that he is going toward a country that has eternal light “where the sun is forever visible,” “our first indication that the light is not moral and the monsters at the start feel it as of “light has pushed his nerves.” The light does not advantage to the daemon; it only helps people distinguish how repulsive he is. The Bible in Frankenstein is not a sign, but in fact, it is a symbol; the monster is associated with Adam, the main man in the Judeo-Christian custom, like “Adam I was seemingly started by no connection to some other being in presence…” later on the monster is also associated with Satan “Many times I consider sedan as the appropriate symbol of my situation” (15.7). The Alps is another significant sign that helps carry the true sense to the characters activities, Frankenstein drives to the Alps, and the Alps shared with its loveliness took his attention away from his horrifying time with the outcomes of his formation. In Frankenstein, water metaphorically carries life to Frankenstein, whether he is traveling on it or taking it. It carries his life and motivates him to be near to natural environment. Walton considered the light of the far north as everlasting and filled with hopes: “What could not be predictable in the country of everlasting lights?
Works Cited
Foster, Thomas C. How to Read Literature Like a Professor. Harper Collins Publishers, 2012. Print.
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, 1818. Engage Books, AD Classic, 2014. Print.
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