A Blessing and a Curse

Frankenstein decides to tell his story to Walton because he hopes to avert him from making his same mistakes of throwing caution to the wind in pursuit of knowledge and success. He states that in his youth, his throat for knowledge propelled him forward, into habits of reading and crating his own studies. He then advances to a university where he continues to obsess over his own theories and experiments. Frankenstein leaves the boundaries of science behind him as he discovered and puts to use the source of creation of life. Though all of his efforts ended in success, Frankenstein regards his gift for learning as a curse. "Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow". Frankenstein tries to warn Walton in essentially the same lesson as "curiosity killed the cat". He tells him to be wary of the information he seeks because he might not like what he finds. This is a central theme in Mary Shelly's novel Frankenstein, with the remainder of the story regarding all of the repercussions of Frankenstein's challenging the laws of nature.