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The role of ambition in life
The role of ambition in life
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Ambitions Gone Bonkers!
How far can your ambitions go before it comes to a fine line between hurting you or helping you? Aron Rolston, an ambitious mountain climber in the movie 127 Hours, decides to go canyoneering in Blue John Canyon. Climbing through confined spaces where boulders are suspended, crammed between mountainous walls of rock, he slips and falls into a canyon where his arm is trapped between the boulder and canyon wall. What a misadventure! One of the many moralistic themes that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is trying to convey is that ambition inevitably leads to disaster. Dr. Frankenstein, the Creature, and Robert Walton are the three most ambitious characters. They all have a goal they want to reach but do not put into account the consequences that will follow.
Dr. Frankenstein yearns to create life from death by creating what he pictures "a human being in perfection" (Shelley 40). Alan Rauch writes, in The Monstrous Body of Knowledge in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, of how "Frankenstein's secretive approach to knowledge production [building the creature] can be taken as a sure sign that his discovery will be a disaster with respect to the public understanding" (Rauch 237). Rauch foreshadows that Frankenstein's creation of this "human being in perfection" (Shelley 40) would actually be a creation of disaster. Which the public, including Frankenstein, would reject to accommodate with. The public, will never want to be around a creature so hideous and intimidating, which leads reasons of how the public reacts to the Creature in a catastrophic manner.
Your ambitions can lead you into absurd conditions. Like Frankenstein, the Creature is also ambitious and does not think of the effects of his actions. Because a...
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...rney, Waltons ship gets stuck between thick sheets of ice, impossible for the ship to move. A couple of days pass, Walton realizes he is in a real pickle and that there is no hope for him to find this route and survive without putting his crew in risk of their lives. He takes the advice of Frankenstein and calls off the trip and returns home. Robert may have been as ambitious as Frankenstein, if it was not for Frankenstein to enter the ship and warn him about his own ambitious mistakes.
When their thoughts of knowledge and power get to them, their ambitions lead them to disastrous endings, like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The three main characters Victor, the Creature and Robert Walton, are very ambitious unknowing of what the future holds for them and their actions leads them to disasters. Likewise, the movie, 127 Hours where Ralstons arm was trapped by a boulder.
In conclusion, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein shows readers how irresponsibility and the excessive need for knowledge can cause suffering among others as well as oneself. Victor never intends to cause such harm; however, he is not cautious and observant with his actions, which ultimately leads to his classification as a tragic hero. The desire to learn is most definitely a wonderful trait to have, as long as one’s knowledge doesn’t reach the extent that Victor Frankenstein’s unfortunately does.
As Frankenstein is enroute to his pursuit of gaining more knowledge, he states, “I wished, as it were, to procrastinate all that related to my feelings of affection until the great object, which swallowed up every habit of my nature, should be completed” (Shelley 41). Frankenstein’s decision in allowing his intellectual ambitions to overpower everything else in his life leads him to be blinded to the dangers of creating life. He isolates himself from his society when creating the monster, letting himself be immersed in his creation while being driven by his passions, allowing nobody to be near him. The fact that he allows this creation of a monster to consume his total being reveals how blinded he is to the immorality of stepping outside the boundaries of science and defying nature. His goal in striving to achieve what wants to in placing man over nature makes him lose his sense of self as all he is focused on is the final product of his creation. He starts to realize his own faults as after he has created the monster, he becomes very ill and states, “The form of the monster on whom I had bestowed existence was forever before my eyes, and I raved incessantly concerning him” (48). His impulsive decision to make the monster leads him to abhorring it as it does not turn out to be what he has expected. Because he chooses to isolate himself in creating the
...the downfall of Frankenstein and the monster. Frankenstein found the secret to life, though he applies his gained knowledge and ambition to his own selfish goals, which wind up destroying him and those closest to him. Walton has something in common with Frankenstein; his ambition to achieve something that no man has ever accomplished before. The difference between Victor and Walton is tat Walton decides to turn back. The monster on the other hand never wanted any fame or glory; his ambition was motivated by the thirst for revenge. Ultimately even Frankenstein, on his deathbed, realized the harsh consequences of his actions. Victor states, "Seek happiness in tranquility, and avoid ambition..." (Shelley 229).
In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the concept of "discovery" is paradoxical: initial discovery is joyful and innocent, but ends in misery and corruption. The ambitions of both Walton and Frankenstein (to explore new lands and to cast scientific light on the unknown, respectively) are formed with the noblest of intentions but a fatal disregard for the sanctity of natural boundaries. Though the idea of discovery remains idealized, human fallibility utterly corrupts all pursuit of that ideal. The corruption of discovery parallels the corruption inherent in every human life, in that a child begins as a pure and faultless creature, full of wonder, but hardens into a self-absorbed, grasping, overly ambitious adult. Only by novel's end does Walton recognize that he must abandon his own ambition (the mapping of previously uncharted land), out of concern for the precious lives of his crew.
...e characters in Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein. Throughout the story, the characters find out what it feels like to have a friend and a companion. Robert Walton finds a friend in Victor after he finds him in the isolated Arctic. the creature feels love when he is created by his creator Victor and Victor
In Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, Victor Frankenstein seeks knowledge. He thirsts for glory and pursues knowledge for this selfish pursuit. Throughout this, Frankenstein weakens his relationships, such as his relationship with Elizabeth and Henry. In his pursuit, he brings an intellectual being to life making the quest all the more selfish. Motivated by this selfish desire for glory, Frankenstein embarks on a pursuit of knowledge for the “secrets” of life that ultimately weakens his relationships and sanity. Frankenstein’s experience with the monster, his weakening relationships, and his personal philosophy illuminate the consequence of pursuing knowledge for the wrong purpose.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a nineteenth century literary work that delves into the world of science and the plausible outcomes of morally insensitive technological research. Although the novel brings to the forefront several issues about knowledge and sublime nature, the novel mostly explores the psychological and physical journey of two complex characters. While each character exhibits several interesting traits that range from passive and contemplative to rash and impulsive, their most attractive quality is their monstrosity. Their monstrosities, however, differ in the way each of the character’s act and respond to their environment. Throughout Frankenstein, one assumes that Frankenstein’s creation is the true monster. While the creation’s actions are indeed monstrous, one must also realize that his creator, Victor Frankenstein is also a villain. His inconsiderate and selfish acts as well as his passion for science result in the death of his friend and family members and ultimately in his own demise.
The creator of the monster, Victor Frankenstein is a man full of knowledge and has a strong passion for science. He pushes the boundary of science and creates a monster. Knowledge can be a threat when used for evil purposes. Though Victor did not intend for the being to be evil, society’s judgement on the monster greatly affects him. As a result he develops hatred for his creator as well as all man-kind. Victor’s anguish for the loss of his family facilitates his plan for revenge to the monster whom is the murderer. While traveling on Robert Walton’s ship he and Victor continue their pursuit of the monster. As Victor’s death nears he says, “…or must I die, and he yet live? If I do, swear to me Walton, that he shall not escape, that you will seek him and satisfy my vengeance in his death…Yet, when I am dead if he should appear, if the ministers of vengeance should conduct him to you, swear that he shall not live-swear that he shall not triumph over my accumulated woes and survive to add to the list of his dark crimes” (pg.199). Victor grieves the death of William, Justine, Clerval, Elizabeth and his father. Throughout the novel he experiences the five stages of grief, denial/ isolation, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. Victor denies ...
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the demented scientist, Victor Frankenstein, drives himself mad after creating a paradox that ultimately destroys his life as well as the lives of those he loved the most. Frankenstein tells his story to a captain he meets by the name of Robert Walton as a warning not to meddle into the unknown. Victor tells him how he wanted this beast to look to him as its God, and how that stimulated his fixation from the very beginning. He allows the power to consume his whole existence.
Victor Frankenstein’s scientific endeavor, Robert Walton’s search for the North Pole, and the creature’s kind heart but scary features creates this whole theme of dangerous knowledge. The search for knowledge is encouraged and at times pushed by others. In Frankenstein is shows quest can lead to too much knowledge and drive him or her to his fate.
Captain Walton is the novel’s narrator and himself was casted an overreached voyaging out for the glory of discovering the wondrous power which would attract the needle and the undiscovered solitudes that had found Frankenstein to be divine wanderer.
Victor Frankenstein is originally a happy character that loves to learn and read a large variety of books. He was a fiery individual who sought to understand all knowledge; regardless of how practical the information was. Evidence of this is when his father tells him not to worry about fictional writers like Cornelius Agrippa. Yet, Frankenstein states, “But here were books, and here were men who had penetrated deeper and knew more. I took their word for all that they averred, and I became their disciple” (21). Frankenstein embodies the movement in science to understand everything, and that is not necessarily a good thing (Storment 2). Frankenstein only understands that this train of thought is bad when he reaches the pinnacle of knowledge and produces the creature. The fruits of Frankenstein’s labor end up costing him the lives of his friends and family, as well as his own sanity. The feeling of guilt thrives in Frankenstein because he knows his work was the direct cause of the chaos in his life. In Frankenstein’s case, his goal of total enlightenment led to his pitiful demise. Frankenstein’s creature was not originally a monster. He is born with good intentions and is a gentle- although atrocious looking- being until he learns of the sins of the human race. The ultimate factor in the creature’s progression from harmless to
According to Goodall, "Frankenstein is concerned, the creation of the monster can be seen as an act which could indeed have constituted a wonderful achievement and which is only turned to disaster through the baleful determining influence of the persecutory imagination" (Article Finder). Frankenstein knows that his knowledge is priceless, but he sees that the world and even he are not ready to accept or understand his creation as the monster describes its horrible and lonely life.
In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley highlights on the experiences her characters undergo through the internal war of passion and responsibility. Victor Frankenstein lets his eagerness of knowledge and creating life get so out of hand that he fails to realize what the outcome of such a creature would affect humankind. Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, highlights on how Frankenstein’s passion of knowledge is what ultimately causes the decline of his health and the death of him and his loved ones.
Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" delves into the profound implications of the relentless pursuit of forbidden knowledge. Throughout the novel, Shelley emphasizes the dire consequences that arise from overstepping ethical boundaries and seeking to unravel the mysteries of life. Acting as a cautionary narrative, it illuminates the ethical quandaries, individual repercussions, and broader societal impacts entwined with the pursuit of forbidden knowledge. Shelley contends that the pursuit of forbidden knowledge inevitably leads to catastrophic consequences, epitomized by Victor Frankenstein's reckless ambition and the ensuing devastation it wreaks. Shelley's "Frankenstein" serves as a cautionary tale about the ethical boundaries of scientific exploration.