Frankenstein is not a cautionary tale of science gone too far as it is often described. It is a story about the dangers of self-educated, self-declared ‘scientists’ whose education consists primarily of sporadic self-study instead of putting their noses to the proverbial academic grindstone like real scholars. Frankenstein was the script kiddie of his day; a dilettante who knew just enough to take advantage of the tools created by real experts and was arrogant enough to think that made him a master of the craft despite lacking comprehensive skills and understanding (PC Tools).
Frankenstein’s conception of science was shaped when he was young, and he clung to it well into adulthood. This is a bad thing because his earliest understanding of the subject came from classical philosophers and alchemists like Agrippa and Albertus Magnus whose theories and models had long since been left behind by modern science. For all that Frankenstein claimed “it was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn” (Shelley 29) his reaction to modern scientists like Newton and his descendants was to come away “discontented and dissatisfied” (Shelley 30). Frankenstein did not want to be a scientist; he wanted to be an alchemist or a sorcerer and either did not understand or was not willing to admit the difference. Years later when he began his university studies and was inspired to see the real sciences in a positive light he still described their appeal in the same terms. He talked about how modern philosophers had “acquired new and almost unlimited powers” and could “command the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake, and even mock the invisible world with its own shadows” (Shelley 39). These are not the words of a man driven by a love of knowledge and learning and a desire for understanding. They are the words of an aspiring wizard who fancies he has discovered a route to arcane power.
It is not a coincidence that Frankenstein’s youthful fantasies about discovering the fabled elixir of life were replaced by an obsession with “discovering the cause of generation and life” (Shelley 44) and animating unliving matter. If Mary Shelley intended her story as a rumination on the dangers of science without restraint she not only failed; she managed to create the exact opposite. If Victor Frankenstein had been a scientist at heart the novel would have taken a very different path. Frankenstein is a story about scientific knowledge applied with magical thinking.
Works Cited
“What is a Script Kiddie?” PC Tools by Symantec. pctools, n.d. Web. 10 January 2016.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Ebook. Amazon Digital Services. 17 May 2012.
