Frankenstein Blog #5

“Of what a strange nature is knowledge!  It clings to the mind, when it has once seized on it, like a lichen on the rock.  I wished sometimes to shake off all thought and feeling; but I learned that there was but one means to overcome the sensation of pain, and that was death…” (Shelley 81).

            This quote is of Frankenstein’s monster as he is telling his tale to his creator in volume 2.  It seemed particularly poignant to me because it seems to echo the mindset of many of the characters in the story so far.  The overriding message of this statement is that ignorance is bliss.  Everyone seeks out and even yearns for knowledge, but once it is had, it cannot be shaken, “It clings to the mind…” (81). If the knowledge that one gains is unexpected or undesirable it causes unimaginable misery.  This is especially true in the case of Victor Frankenstein and his monster. 

            For Victor, ignorance allows him to go on about his life for more than 2 years after creating this “wretch” without giving much of a thought to what happened to it.  It is only when he comes across the figure of his creation after the death of his brother that he realizes, and comes to know, that it is ultimately his fault that his brother has been murdered.  Furthermore, knowing that a dear friend has been executed because of what he has done is knowledge that is so unbearable that he cannot shake it or the misery that this knowledge brings him.

            For Frankenstein’s monster being alive is full of mystery and awe.  He begins his life and journey completely ignorant of who he is, what he is, or where he came from.  In spite of his lack of knowledge he believes that the world is an amazing place and that the people in it are essentially good and benevolent creatures like himself.  He yearns to acquire the knowledge to be among people and to know who he is.  After a year of observing the world, the monster presents himself, and in so doing, loses the last bit of happiness that ignorance affords him.  He learns that he is, no matter how hard he tries, nothing but a hideous monster that will never be able to be accepted among people.  This knowledge and final obliteration of blissful ignorance is what causes the untold misery that cannot be shaken and makes him long for death to relieve it.

           Image source: http://images.sodahead.com/profiles/0/0/0/4/5/2/3/0/5/Ignorance-is-bliss-38440156948.jpeg

Works Cited

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, and J. Paul Hunter. Frankenstein,

The 1818 Text, Contexts, Nineteenth-century Responses, Modern Criticism. W W Norton & Co Inc, 1996. Print.