From the beginning, Frankenstein establishes a link between the acquisition of knowledge, or the discovery of secrets, and evil. Walton's sister's "evil forebodings" surrounding his attempt to reach the North Pole, highlighted in the very first sentence, immediately signal not only the dangers that accompany the pursuit of irresistible knowledge for an ambitious romantic like Walton (and of course like Frankenstein himself ), but also that Walton is a character (again like Frankenstein) perhaps irresistibly attracted to danger. That the reader himself is implicated in this dangerous expedition into the unknown is made clear as we are positioned as spectators of the terrible secret that Walton, as the transcriber of Frankenstein's story, will reveal. It has been noted that, not unlike Paradise Lost, a moral exploration that Frankenstein leans heavily on, the book has moved beyond the limits of its text, and is now a product of criticism, rather than a literary work. Mary Shelley's description of the novel as her "hideous progeny" indicates that, regardless of the story it tells, Frankenstein as an entity is a symbol of how a secret, once revealed, or "born," cannot be erased , but it must be allowed to continue – as the monster itself and its creator are all too painfully aware – whatever the consequences for its possessor. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Accompanying the sense of danger we feel surrounding the disclosure of secret knowledge is the inevitable fear of possessing it. Curiosity and fear obviously go hand in hand, and the latter usually does little to eradicate the former. Frankenstein is adept at inspiring both, in preparing Walton for the story he is about to tell: Once I had resolved that the memory of these evils should die with me; but you convinced me to change my decision. You seek knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I fervently hope that the gratification of your desires is not a snake that stings you, as mine was... if you feel like it, listen to my story. I believe that the strange incidents connected with it will allow you to have a vision of nature that can broaden your faculties and your understanding... (17)As an introduction to the story of Frankenstein, the passage is full of clues, not least the reference to the tree of knowledge and its accompanying "serpent", that possession of the secret - of which the reader expects as much as Walton - will not be advantageous. Frankenstein's useless phrase, "if you are inclined..." is surely false, for he is well aware that he has found in Walton someone who seeks knowledge at any cost, "as I once did." Walton tells his sister that, perhaps unsurprisingly after this seductive precursor, he is filled with "great eagerness" to hear the story of Frankenstein. He is quick to point out that it is not mere "curiosity" that drives Frankenstein to move forward in his confession, but also "a strong desire to improve his lot." A rather dubious statement in light of the fact that at this point he is still labeling Frankenstein as "an unknown". The phrase almost exactly parallels the one used by Frankenstein after the monster begs his creator to listen to his story: "I was partly driven by curiosity, and compassion confirmed my decision."(79) Once again , "curiosity" is the dominant motivation. , with the word “compassion” ringing with a distinct note of self-justification. Critics have often explored how narrative structure, withits Chinese box effect that brings us ever closer to a powerful kernel of truth that we never quite reach, acts as a form of seduction. Beth Newman talks about how the narrative in Frankenstein "serves as a way to seduce a listener and as a means of displacing and sublimating a desire that cannot be satisfied."directly.' A sense of the seductive quality of Frankenstein's speech is given in Walton's description of his "peerless eloquence," deployed by "the choicest art" (15). Later, Walton gives us an image of Frankenstein as a kind of mermaid, luring men at sea to their deaths through the power of his words, encouraging the fearsome crew of Walton's ship to continue their fateful quest with the belief that "these vast mountains" of ice are molehills, which will vanish before the decisions of man" (181). Why then does Frankenstein carry out this almost perverse act of seduction, knowing that it will only bring anguish? The question can be answered once again time describing Shelley's work as her "offspring"; the act of revelation, of sharing knowledge, is as basic a human need as maternal reproduction. The novel is full of characters desperately trying to tell their stories to the others, to unburden themselves of terrible truths. Just like Frankenstein, the monster begs for someone to "listen to my story" (79), and just like Walton, Frankenstein is irresistibly compelled to listen. The urge to communicate echoes again and again, all the way back to Elizabeth's gossipy communications in her letters to her fiancé Frankenstein, in which she is driven by her desire to reveal herself to engage in lengthy descriptions of various parish news. The example is certainly banal, but it is one of the numerous expedients used in the novel to highlight the difference between the carefree speech of someone who is capable of sharing everything with those he loves, and the miserable narration of Frankenstein, forced to hide secrets and hide his its true emotions at every corner. The difference is highlighted most openly in the comparison between Frankenstein and his friend Henry Clerval, when they embark on their tour of European attractions together. Clerval is repeatedly portrayed as a paradigm of human existence, "a being formed in the 'poetry of nature itself'".(130) He is also, as the "Freudian" readers of the text like to point out, one of the many "doubles" who populate Frankenstein. Frankenstein makes this explicit by stating that “in Clerval I saw the image of myself.”(131) The implication is that Clerval is Frankenstein without knowledge. Frankenstein repeatedly characterizes all of the novel's characters without his knowledge as belonging to an Arcadian, childlike vision of innocence, in contrast to his personal "hell". Inherent in her sense of horror at her situation is a sense of superiority, however terrible, towards those who cannot understand the cause of her suffering. So he responds to his father's advice with a terse dismissal, "though good, totally inapplicable to my case."(70) Again and again Frankenstein is careful to point out that his pain is entirely his own property, inaccessible to others. Robert Kiely explains the conflicting emotions Frankenstein feels about being a “genius,” and thus prone to a dissonance between the human need for friendship, to share with those he loves, and “the genius's right to work in solitude. ' That higher knowledge leads to loneliness is confirmed by the events of the Frankenstein tale. But the explanation is difficult, since it suggests the idea that Frankenstein acquires knowledge of the secret of human life through his innate genius, rather than through the combination of his ambitious nature andtemptations of the evil branch of nature. science that seems to appear fortuitously in front of him. At one point Frankenstein complains that his father, after seeing that his young son had begun to stray into the path of semi-magical natural conjurers like Agrippa and Magnus, did not bother to explain (23) that these men's ideas were antiquated and similar to a kind of witchcraft. Having said that, are we to assume that the cause of Frankenstein's downfall was simply that his genius had not been properly harnessed at an earlier stage? IT'S a question the novel never fully answers. When Frankenstein details his life at the university of Ingolstadt, a possessive tone once again emerges when he points out: "None but those who have experienced them can conceive the lures of science." 33) The word “attractions,” along with allusions to “delight and ecstasy” and the “culmination of my desires” (34) depict the attainment of knowledge much like a sexually charged climax following an exercise in seduction, a formula that mirrors the act of disclosing his story to Walton. Blatant parallels, which would seem to serve as obvious warning signs, occur repeatedly in Frankenstein, but, as Paul Sherwin has pointed out, this apparent genius remains the "chief misunderstanding" of his own story. Frankenstein tells Walton to "learn from me," recognizing the "passionate" twinkle in his listener's eyes and warning him, "I will not lead you, helpless and ardent as I then was, to your destruction and unfailing misery." ) Yet immediately afterwards we see him spurring Walton and his crew towards what can only be their destruction at the North Pole, using alternating tactics of flattery of honor and glory, and the shame of being "cowards" (183), should they turn back from their goal. This is not to mention the fact that Frankenstein constantly "leads" us through the very act of revealing his narrative. It would seem that, even armed with what should surely be the most effective warning against the ambitious pursuit of knowledge ever created, Frankenstein is happy to recognize and encourage in others what he calls a "fatal impulse" in himself.(23) The bait. of forbidden knowledge is obviously a classic Gothic touchstone, where it generally works just as powerfully for the reader as for the character experiencing it. Caleb William's recognition of his fatal desire to learn the truth about his master's dark past might be addressed to a reader of Frankenstein: "The reader will feel how rapidly I was advancing towards the edge of the precipice." I had a confusing apprehension of what I was doing, but I couldn't help myself.' The difference is that, while the reader is able to empathize wholeheartedly with a figure like Caleb Williams, or even a historical and romantic heroine like Emily St. Aubert in The Mysteries of Udolpho, Shelley rather distances us from understanding Frankenstein's experiences and experiences. desires. The narrative plot is a key part of this, constantly reminding us that we are learning about a horror that we will only hear in a story, rather than experience in real life. Charles Schug indicates this as a "necessary" means of containing Frankenstein's moral experience within the limits of fiction. But the main distancing factor is that Frankenstein grapples, not with human emotions and secret family histories, but with a realm of natural, almost magical scientific knowledge that we are never meant to attempt to understand. The image we are given of Ingolstadt University as a place of remote learning and.