Paper 103: Literature of the Romantics

Paper 103: Literature of the Romantics

“The Dangerous Pursuit of Knowledge: Science, Creation, and Moral Responsibility in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein”

Table of Contents

Abstract…………………………………………………………………..3

Research Question ………………………………………………………3

Hypothesis………………………………………………………………4

1.Introduction ..........................................................................................4

2. The Romantic Context and the Ethos of Knowledge…………… …..6

  2.1 Romanticism and the Age of Discovery ………………………6

  2.2 The Moral Limits of Enlightenment Knowledge  …………….6

  2.3 Narrative Form as Ethical Reflection …………………………7

3.Science and Transgression ……………………………………………7

  3.1 The Promethean Ambition ……………………………………8

  3.2 The Creation of the Monster: Knowledge as Sin…………. ….8

  3.3 Moral Responsibility and the Rejection of Creation …………9

4. The Creature’s Perspective: Knowledge, Suffering, and Moral Awareness ………………………………………………………………………….9

  4.1 The Awakening of Consciousness………………………….. 10 

  4.2 The Desire for Sympathy and the Failure of Society………..10

  4.3 The Moral Superior to His Maker …………………………..11 

5. Science, Ethics, and the Modern Resonance……………………… 11

  5.1 The Continuity of the Frankenstein Myth in Modern Science .11

  5.2 The Collapse of Idealism and the Moral Vacuum …………..12

  5.3 Ethical Reflection and the Future of Creation ………………13

6.  Conclusion: The Enduring Ethics of Creation …………………….13

7.  References ……………………………………………………. …..15

• Academic Details:

           - Name:  Mansi S. Makwana

           - Roll No: 21

           - Enrollment No: 5108250021

           - Sem: 1

           - Batch: 2025-2027

           - E-mail: mansimakwana307@gmail.com

• Assignment Details:

 - Paper Name: Literature of the Romantics

         - Paper No: 103

         - Paper Code:  22394

         - Unit: 2

     - Topic:  “The Dangerous Pursuit of Knowledge: Science, Creation, and Moral Responsibility in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein”

     -Submitted To: Smt. S. B. Gardi,Department of English,MKBU  

      - Submitted Date: November 10,2025

The following information—numbers are counted using QuillBot

- Characters:  19951   

   - Words :2783             

   - Sentence:  242     

   - Paragraph:  131  

   - Image: 1

Abstract

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) remains one of the most profound meditations on the moral and psychological costs of unchecked scientific ambition. Written during the height of the Romantic period, it exposes how the Enlightenment pursuit of knowledge — celebrated for its promise of progress — can also lead to alienation, destruction, and moral collapse. This paper explores the dangerous pursuit of knowledge through Victor Frankenstein’s overreaching experiment, positioning his act of creation as both a Romantic metaphor for human aspiration and a warning against ethical negligence. Drawing on Alan Rauch’s concept of “the monstrous body of knowledge,” Maurice Hindle’s study of Romantic science, and Oksana Kozii’s recent philosophical inquiry into moral conflict, the discussion situates Shelley’s novel within a continuum of scientific and ethical debates that extend to modern technologies such as artificial intelligence. The study argues that Shelley’s narrative not only anticipates twentieth- and twenty-first-century anxieties about scientific responsibility but also constructs an enduring moral framework for understanding the creator’s duty toward his creation.

Research Question

How does Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein represent the pursuit of scientific knowledge as both a source of human advancement and a moral danger, and in what ways does the novel’s ethical framework remain relevant to modern debates about scientific responsibility?

Hypothesis

This paper hypothesizes that Frankenstein critiques the Enlightenment ideal of rational progress by demonstrating that the pursuit of knowledge, when detached from moral responsibility, leads to personal and social ruin. Victor Frankenstein’s failure is not simply scientific; it is ethical and emotional — a failure to acknowledge the humanity of what he has created. Through this lens, Shelley constructs a Romantic moral vision that anticipates contemporary dilemmas surrounding scientific creation, from biotechnology to artificial intelligence.

1.Introduction

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) emerges from an era when scientific curiosity and Romantic idealism intertwined to redefine humanity’s understanding of itself. Victor Frankenstein’s experiment with reanimation dramatizes the Enlightenment faith in empirical knowledge, yet Shelley subverts this faith by revealing its destructive potential when pursued without ethical consideration. As Maurice Hindle observes, Shelley’s work “reflects the Romantic scientist’s fascination with vitalism and galvanism” but simultaneously transforms this fascination into a critique of “Romantic science” (Hindle 29).

This image is generated with the help of Gemini 

The novel’s enduring significance lies in its ability to link intellectual ambition to moral accountability. In her portrayal of Frankenstein’s obsession, Shelley constructs what Alan Rauch calls a “monstrous body of knowledge” — a metaphor for the dangers of intellectual overreach that consumes both creator and creation (Rauch 230). The act of giving life to the Creature, far from being a triumph of reason, becomes a moral catastrophe. When Frankenstein confesses, “Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge” (Shelley 54), he voices the central ethical dilemma of the Romantic imagination: the tension between discovery and destruction.

The paper draws upon diverse critical interpretations that examine Frankenstein as a text of epistemological and ethical anxieties. Scholars such as Charles Schug highlight its “Romantic form,” situating the narrative within the broader context of Romantic individualism (Schug 608). Theodore Ziolkowski’s mythic reading expands this idea by presenting Victor as a modern Prometheus whose transgression invites divine and natural retribution (Ziolkowski 38). Contemporary readings, including Patowary’s comparative study of artificial intelligence, further reveal how Shelley’s cautionary tale resonates in a world still grappling with the ethics of creation and control (Patowary 123).

This study will examine Frankenstein through five lenses: Romantic science and the ethos of knowledge, the moral psychology of transgression, the ethics of creation and neglect, the intersection of gender and power, and finally, its modern analogues in technological innovation. By synthesizing classical and contemporary scholarship, the paper argues that Shelley’s novel envisions a perpetual moral challenge: the responsibility of creators — scientific, artistic, or technological — to the beings and systems they bring into existence.

2 The Romantic Context and the Ethos of Knowledge

2.1 Romanticism and the Age of Discovery

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein reflects the Romantic age’s fascination with imagination, science, and moral responsibility. The early nineteenth century saw rapid advances in chemistry and electricity, inspiring hopes of human mastery over nature. Yet Shelley presents this ambition with deep moral anxiety. Maurice Hindle calls the novel “a philosophical reflection on the Romantic scientist’s impulse to transcend human limitation” (29).

Victor’s dream of creation embodies this spirit:

“So much has been done... more, far more, will I achieve” (Shelley 40).

But Shelley warns that such aspiration can become destructive when unrestrained by ethics or humility.

2.2 The Moral Limits of Enlightenment Knowledge

While the Enlightenment celebrated reason and progress, Shelley exposes their dangers. Victor’s ambition to “bestow animation upon lifeless matter” (Shelley 45) transforms knowledge into obsession. Alan Rauch interprets this as “the monstrous body of knowledge,” where intellect detached from conscience becomes grotesque (229). When Victor beholds his creation, “the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (Shelley 52).

Thus, Shelley reverses the Enlightenment ideal—knowledge brings not light but moral darkness.

2.3 Narrative Form as Ethical Reflection

Shelley’s layered narration mirrors the novel’s moral questions. As Charles Schug notes, Frankenstein externalizes inner conflict through its “Romantic form” (608). Walton’s ambition to “tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man” (Shelley 14) echoes Victor’s own quest, showing how the drive for discovery repeats across generations. Yet Walton learns restraint, choosing compassion over conquest:

“I have lost my hopes of glory... but I will not set my crew adrift to perish” (Shelley 186).

Through him, Shelley redefines heroism as moral awareness rather than triumph over nature.

3 Science and Transgression

3.1  The Promethean Ambition

Victor Frankenstein’s pursuit of forbidden knowledge aligns him with the myth of Prometheus — the figure who stole fire from the gods. Shelley transforms this myth into a modern moral allegory. Theodore Ziolkowski observes that Victor embodies “the Promethean myth of modern science,” where defiance against divine order leads to isolation and ruin (35).

Victor’s confession captures this hubris:

“Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through” (Shelley 44).

His ambition reflects not curiosity but overreach — a rebellion against natural law that Romantic thinkers like Shelley saw as both creative and perilous.

3.2 The Creation of the Monster: Knowledge as Sin

Shelley dramatizes the moment when intellectual pride turns into moral failure. When Victor exclaims,

“I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body” (Shelley 50),

his language of endurance and mastery reveals obsession, not enlightenment.

Maurice Hindle reads this act as “Romantic science unrestrained by conscience” (31). The resulting creature becomes the physical embodiment of Victor’s transgression—a mirror of his own moral deformity. As soon as he beholds it, “the beauty of the dream vanished” (Shelley 52). Shelley thereby links the act of creation with the fall from innocence—a pattern reminiscent of Milton’s Paradise Lost, a text both Victor and his Creature interpret differently but equally tragically.

3.3 Moral Responsibility and the Rejection of Creation

Once life is bestowed, Victor’s moral duty begins—but he fails it entirely. His immediate rejection of the Creature—“Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room” (Shelley 53)—marks the true sin of omission.

Alan Rauch argues that Shelley’s novel “exposes the ethical void at the center of Romantic science” (230). The Creature’s later plea, “I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel” (Shelley 97), reveals Shelley’s reworking of the Biblical narrative into a humanistic critique. Science, when stripped of compassion, becomes not divine creation but desecration.

4 The Creature’s Perspective: Knowledge, Suffering, and Moral Awareness

4.1 The Awakening of Consciousness

Shelley endows the Creature with intellectual and emotional growth that parallels humanity’s own awakening. Abandoned at birth, he learns language, empathy, and morality through observation — a process that reflects the Enlightenment faith in education, yet also its limitations.

As the Creature recalls,

“I gradually saw plainly the clear stream, the heavens, and the earth... I distinguished the insect from the herb, and by degrees one herb from another” (Shelley 83).

Poorghorban and Taghizadeh note that Shelley’s portrayal of this self-taught being reveals “a symbolic encounter with Enlightenment and industrialization”. The Creature’s development illustrates how knowledge without belonging leads to alienation rather than empowerment.

4.2  The Desire for Sympathy and the Failure of Society

Through the Creature, Shelley critiques the social rejection of the different and the unknown. His plea for companionship—“I am malicious because I am miserable” (Shelley 125)—reveals a moral insight absent in Victor. Despite his education and eloquence, the Creature’s knowledge brings only pain.

Joseph Lew reads this alienation as Shelley’s “critique of the deceptive other,” showing how society’s fear of the unfamiliar reflects moral blindness (259). The Creature’s suffering becomes a mirror for humanity’s failure to apply reason ethically. Shelley thus suggests that moral responsibility extends beyond creation to compassion.

4.3 The Moral Superior to His Maker

Ironically, the Creature’s reflections often display more conscience than his creator’s. When he declares,

“You, my creator, detest and spurn me... how dare you sport thus with life?” (Shelley 125),

Shelley reverses the hierarchy of creator and creation.

O. Kozii argues that the novel dramatizes “ethical conflict and moral consequence” through this inversion, as the Creature attains the self-awareness that Victor lacks (75). His final act of remorse—“He was soon borne away by the waves, and lost in darkness and distance” (Shelley 187)—marks him as both sinner and penitent, embodying Shelley’s Romantic ideal of moral consciousness born through suffering.

5 Science, Ethics, and the Modern Resonance

5.1 The Continuity of the Frankenstein Myth in Modern Science

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein remains a prophetic vision of humanity’s struggle to control the powers it unleashes. In the twenty-first century, her novel resonates profoundly with the ethical dilemmas surrounding artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and digital creation. U. Patowary draws a direct parallel between Victor’s ambition and modern AI research, describing both as “a comparative analysis of creation, morality, and responsibility” (122).

Victor’s declaration —

“Learn from me... how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge” (Shelley 61) —

functions as a timeless warning. As science continues to replicate human capacities, Shelley’s text insists that creators must remain accountable for the moral life of their inventions.

5.2 The Collapse of Idealism and the Moral Vacuum

C. Tan interprets Shelley’s narrative as an allegory of “quixotic idealism and moral decay” (249). Victor’s utopian dream of scientific glory mirrors the way modern innovators often frame technology as salvation. Yet, as Shelley demonstrates, the pursuit of idealized perfection can corrupt the moral purpose of creation.

Victor’s confession —

“The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature” (Shelley 76) —

reveals the instability of human emotion that no science can master. In this light, Shelley’s novel warns that untempered ambition — whether Romantic or modern — leads not to progress but to dehumanization. The true tragedy lies not in failure to create life, but in failure to sustain moral responsibility for it.

5.3 Ethical Reflection and the Future of Creation

O. Kozii views Frankenstein as a “literary and philosophical inquiry into ethical conflict” (74), suggesting that Shelley’s work transcends its period to interrogate the enduring problem of moral accountability. Victor’s final remorse —

“Seek happiness in tranquillity and avoid ambition” (Shelley 182) —

serves as Shelley’s ethical closure: a plea for balance between intellect and empathy.

In the modern age, where technology blurs the boundary between human and machine, Shelley’s insight remains urgent. As Patowary concludes, both Victor and contemporary creators “bear responsibility not just for invention, but for its consequences”. Thus, Frankenstein endures not merely as a Gothic tale but as a foundational text of moral philosophy in science.

6. Conclusion: The Enduring Ethics of Creation

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein stands as one of the most profound reflections on the moral consequences of human ambition and scientific discovery. Written during a period when Romantic idealism collided with Enlightenment rationality, the novel exposes the dangerous allure of knowledge pursued without conscience. Victor Frankenstein’s transgression — his attempt to “pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers” (Shelley 40) — transforms the noble pursuit of learning into a catastrophic moral failure. His tragedy, as critics like Maurice Hindle observe, lies not in his brilliance but in his blindness to responsibility (Hindle 33).

Throughout the novel, Shelley contrasts the arrogance of the creator with the suffering of the created. The Creature’s moral awakening, his yearning for compassion, and his recognition of injustice elevate him above his maker. As Kozii notes, the Creature becomes “a mirror through which ethical conflict is illuminated” . In this inversion, Shelley redefines humanity not through intellect, but through empathy and accountability — qualities Victor fatally lacks.

The modern echoes of Frankenstein reinforce its continuing significance. Scholars like Patowary and Tan argue that Shelley’s critique of unrestrained science anticipates today’s debates over artificial intelligence and biotechnological innovation (Patowary 124; Tan 250). Just as Victor’s experiment unleashed unintended harm, contemporary creators grapple with the moral dimensions of technological power. Shelley’s vision thus transcends its Gothic form, offering a timeless philosophical warning: that creation demands care, and knowledge must be tempered by moral restraint.

Ultimately, Frankenstein is not merely a tale of horror, but a meditation on the ethics of existence itself. Shelley’s message remains as urgent today as in 1818 — that to create without love, to know without conscience, is to court destruction. The novel’s final lesson, spoken through Victor’s dying counsel, endures as both moral law and human truth:

“Seek happiness in tranquillity and avoid ambition” (Shelley 182).

In reminding readers that knowledge without empathy becomes monstrous, Mary Shelley transforms the Gothic into a mirror of modernity — a prophecy that continues to speak to the scientific, ethical, and existential anxieties of every age.

7. References 

Hindle, Maurice. “Vital Matters: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Romantic Science.” Critical Survey, vol. 2, no. 1, 1990, pp. 29–35. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41555493

 Accessed 3 Nov. 2025.

Kozii, O. “Ethical Conflict and Moral Consequences in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: A Literary and Philosophical Inquiry.” Astraea, vol. 6, no. 1, 2025, pp. 73–90. https://doi.org/10.34142/astraea.2025.6.1.03

Lew, Joseph W. “The Deceptive Other: Mary Shelley’s Critique of Orientalism in Frankenstein.” Studies in Romanticism, vol. 30, no. 2, 1991, pp. 255–83. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/25600894

Accessed 3 Nov. 2025.

Patowary, U. “Artificial Intelligence and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: A Comparative Analysis of Creation, Morality and Responsibility.” Integrated Journal for Research in Arts and Humanities, vol. 3, no. 4, 2023, pp. 121–127. https://doi.org/10.55544/ijrah.3.4.16

Poorghorban, Y., and A. Taghizadeh. “The Monstrosity of Knowledge: Mary Shelley’s Symbolic Encounter with the Enlightenment and Industrialisation in Frankenstein.” Anglo Saxonica, vol. 22, no. 1, 2024, p. 9.

Rauch, Alan. “The Monstrous Body of Knowledge in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.” Studies in Romanticism, vol. 34, no. 2, 1995, pp. 227–53. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/25601114

Accessed 3 Nov. 2025.

Schug, Charles. “The Romantic Form of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.” Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900, vol. 17, no. 4, 1977, pp. 607–19. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/450311 Accessed 3 Nov. 2025.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. MAPLE PRESS PVT Limited, 2010. Accessed 3 November 2025.

Tan, C. “Quixotic Idealism and Moral Decay in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.” Uluslararası Dil Edebiyat ve Kültür Araştırmaları Dergisi, vol. 4, no. 2, 2021, pp. 248–256. https://doi.org/10.37999/udekad.947076

Ziolkowski, Theodore. “Science, Frankenstein, and Myth.” The Sewanee Review, vol. 89, no. 1, 1981, pp. 34–56. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27543797

Accessed 3 Nov. 2025.