Mary Shelley- Frankenstein Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Mary Shelley- Frankenstein - Essay Example However, one must ask him/herself whether all these experiments, explorations and research now are not as dangerous, or even more dangerous than those described in this novel. Victor Frankenstein, a young man, devastated by seeing his mother die is firmly resolved to study natural philosophy, particularly chemistry, with one purpose only: to find the secret to creation of life and preventing diseases from degrading, disintegrating, decaying of the human bodies, and maybe discover the secret to eternal life, or in other words to infuse life into an inanimate body. â€Å"†¦To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death. I became acquainted with the science of anatomy, but this was not sufficient; I must also observe the natural decay and corruption of the human body†¦My attention was fixed upon every object the most insupportable to the delicacy of the human feelings. I saw how the fine form of man was degraded and wasted; I beheld the corruption of death succeed to the blooming cheek of life; I saw how the worm inherited the wonders of the eye and brain. I paused, examining and analyzing all the minutiae of causation, as exe mplified in the change from life to death, and death to life, until from the midst of this darkness a sudden light broke in upon me – a light so brilliant and wondrous, yet so simple, that while I became dizzy with the immensity of the prospect which it illustrated, I was surprised that among so many men of genius who had directed their inquiries towards the same science, that I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret† (â€Å"Frankenstein†, chapter 4, p.p.28-29). Similarly, Robert Walton, the captain of a ship exploring the northernmost part of the earth and narrator of Victor’s story, is in a similar search of the â€Å"country with eternal light†, mentioned in his first letter to his sister. Eternal light should be understood as his own search of ultimate knowledge.