Frankenstein
In the story Frankenstein, Mary Shelley sways her readers towards a life of neglection towards science. She uses both Frankenstein and the creature as doppelgangers to create tension throughout the story to move plot along. Frankenstein and the monster are clones of each other that Shelley utilizes to demonstrate the vengefulness that science and knowledge has created.
Society pushes Frankenstein and the monster to thrive off of vengeance which leads to their destruction. When Frankenstein goes to the magistrate to tell him about the monster and how the monster killed his entire family, the magistrate does not believe him. The magistrate symbolizes society and society has neglected Frankenstein because the magistrate does not believe that a monster killed his family. This propagates his thirst for revenge because if the magistrate believed him, Victor wouldn’t have had to go around the entire world to search for the monster. Since the monster and Frankenstein are doppelgangers, the monster would be motivated by retribution as well. The monster is desolated from the rest of society so when Victor decides to end his second creation, the monster is furious and decides to dilapidate him from his family. The monster tries to place Victor in a position where he is in complete isolation from society. However, when he sees that Victor has met a new companion, Walton, the creature decides to kill Victor instead because the monster also wants to see his friends suffer as well. Shelley uses the thirst for vengeance of Frankenstein and the monster to progress the plot along.
Knowledge played a key concept in both the monster and Frankenstein lives which lead to their demises. Frankenstein used forbidden knowledge that he received from his studies to effectuate a monster of mass destruction. It is ironic that Frankenstein created something that leads to his fall; he planned it to be something innovative, but instead he lost his family and his life for it....