(intense orchestral music)
(calm music)
- [Presenter] Mary Shelley was an intellectual.
She lived among people for whom the pursuit of knowledge
was a way of life, including her husband
Percy Bysshe Shelley.
In Frankenstein, she explores the pursuit of knowledge
by various characters and their different motives.
Walton, Victor and the monster, are each engaged
in their own personal quest for knowledge.
Walton is a maritime explorer.
Victor makes a scientific breakthrough in creating life.
And the monster, in his quest for acceptance,
is trying to discover what makes us human.
- [Victor Frankenstein] Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds,
which I should first break through and pour a torrent
of light into our dark world.
- [Presenter] In the quest to acquire what he calls
"the secrets of Heaven and Earth", Victor Frankenstein
pursues different paths of knowledge
and finally fixes on Chemistry and Natural Philosophy.
His goal is to achieve a god-like power
by discovering how to create life.
When he witnesses lightning destroy an oak tree,
Frankenstein is inspired to investigate the power
and potential of electricity.
At the end of his life, physically, mentally
and spiritually destroyed, he describes himself as...
- [Victor Frankenstein] A blasted tree;
the bolt has entered my soul; and I felt then that I should
survive to exhibit what I shall soon cease to be -
a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity,
pitiable to others and intolerable to myself.
- [Presenter] Frankenstein's obsession with overturning nature's laws
and creating a living being from the body parts of the dead,
alienates him.
- [Victor Frankenstein] Winter, spring and summer passed away
during my labours; but I did not watch
the blossom or the expanding leaves -
sights which before always yielded me supreme delight -
so deeply was I engrossed in my occupation.
- [Presenter] Not satisfied with merely understanding nature,
he wants to master it and change its laws.
He gains knowledge, but pays a high price for it.
He tells Walton:
- [Victor Frankenstein] All my speculations and hopes are as nothing;
and, like the archangel who aspired to omnipotence,
I am chained in an eternal hell.
- [Presenter] Victor is referring to the archangel Satan
who rebelled against God in Milton's Paradise Lost.
Satan wanted omnipotence, to be all powerful like God.
The punishment for his ambition was exile from Heaven.
Frankenstein is also banished from Heaven,
represented by loved ones and his idyllic
and happy life that preceded his scientific quest.
(mysterious music)
Walton's pursuit to discover secrets of the natural world
sees him embark on an expedition to the North Pole.
He studies Mathematics and Medicine in preparation
for his expedition.
He expects an inestimable benefit to mankind
from the discovery of a northern passage to the Pacific,
the source of magnetism, and a country of eternal light.
As he gets closer to the North Pole,
it seems he may have to risk not only his own life
but those of his crew.
- [Walton] ...it is terrible to reflect that the lives of all these men
are endangered through me.
If we are lost, my mad schemes are the cause.
- [Presenter] As the ice closes in, increasing doubt haunts him.
The delirious Frankenstein urges them on:
- [Victor Frankenstein] Ye need not have come thus far,
and dragged your captain to the shame of defeat,
merely to prove yourself cowards.
Oh! be men, or be more than men.
Be steady to your purposes, and firm as a rock.
- [Presenter] But later proclaims the opposite.
- [Victor Frankenstein] Seek happiness in tranquillity, and avoid ambition,
even if it be only the apparently innocent one
of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries.
- [Presenter] After hearing conflicting advice from Frankenstein,
Walton makes up his own mind.
He returns home.
The reader is left to reflect on these opposing ideas:
should we pursue knowledge at all costs?
(mysterious music)
The monster's journey parallels Frankenstein's,
but occurs in reverse.
At the instant of creation,
he is exiled from the human community.
His journey then is to gain knowledge and understanding
that will empower him to join it.
The monster, like his creator,
learns through observation, a key scientific methodology.
He studies the daily lives of Felix and Agatha,
learns the god-like science of language,
which enables him to read many of
Western Literature's great texts
and in the process, unwittingly discover
one of the human condition's great contradictions.
- [The Monster] These wonderful narrations inspired me
with strange feelings.
Was man, indeed, at once so powerful,
so virtuous and magnificent, yet so vicious and base?
- [Presenter] Despite his wisdom and eloquence,
people reject him because of his grotesque appearance.
The monster has learned much.
Sadly, he finds that...
- [The Monster] Increase of knowledge only discovered to me
more clearly what an outcast I was.
- [Presenter] His experience reveals to the reader
perhaps the ultimate truth about what makes us human:
our interactions and emotional connections with others.
For while the monster is a sentient and rational creature,
he does not live fully.
His existence is sad, solitary and tortured.
Ironically, Victor discovers how to animate dead matter,
but not how to create a fully human being.
His story is a cautionary tale of the dangers
of knowledge without responsibility.
The theme of the pursuit of knowledge alerts us
to the larger question posed by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
What are our responsibilities relating to new technology?
It's still a very relevant question
in light of today's technological developments
in areas like AI, robotics and genetic engineering.