In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, our narrator for the beginning section is Victor. Victor is a brought up in a wealthy home, where is can be educated on different subjects but found a love for what he believes is the sciences. Victor fell in love with alchemy, a mixture of science and magic. When he told his father, he replied “My dear Victor, do not waste your time upon this; it is sad trash” (Shelley 22). This was not an explanation to Victor about how alchemy had been disproven years ago, so Victor continued in this study. When Victor was sent off to the university of Ingolstadt, he meets two professor, M. Krempe and M. Waldman. M. Krempe ridicules Victor for having “really spent your time in studying such nonsense” (Shelley 28), while M. Waldman shows Victor that while alchemy is no longer practiced that chemistry grew out of those failures and discoveries. It was because of M. Waldman the Victor found his love for science again when he wanted to quit.
How do you think things could have changed for Victor if his father would have explained the issue with his studies sooner? Do you think it is important to correct someone’s academic mistakes early or do you allow them to try and figure it out themselves?
I think the obvious change that would occur is that Victor would most likely not have conjured the monster’s existence because he would be deterred from studying any further if his father told him truthfully it was wasteful. He respected his father, so if his father had told him the reasons it was trash, he might have never studied it. I think it is important to let people try and figure it out for themselves. I believe this more so in everyday life, and less in the professional environment. In the everyday environment I think its important for people to learn things for themselves and grow, but in the professional environment I would see it more a waste of time. It would be more beneficial to study what others have already learned, learn it for yourself, and then theorize new theories. I think this is how science grows, and how humanity develops.
I think that it wouldn’t have become as much of an obsession with alchemy if his father had stepped in. The monster also probably wouldn’t have existed because the obsession probably wouldn’t have been strong enough to drive him to create it. I think that this mistake was very important in his learning of science because trial and error has become effective in my style of learning so if I didn’t try and fail I probably wouldn’t have gained information at the same pace. I feel that with computers it helped me really learn them because I got to try and see what I could and couldn’t achieve. I feel that it is important to know why things are wrong sometimes so that you know more than just that something is right.
In some senses, it is important to academically correct people. For instance in math, one needs to learn how to properly do the basics. In the arts however, I feel it is a different story. Art is so subjective, and even though one person draws faces one way, it may be just as successful with a different technique. In terms of Victor, I think his father encouraged his joy for learning and that was so important to his later academic career. He and his siblings loved learning and the pursuit of knowledge, even if it was something as outdated as Alchemy. Victor was able to apply the same passion to Science, and thus created his creature. I don’t think the father was necessarily wrong, but in our day and age it would be seen as weird and I feel as though Victor would be considered the “weird home schooled kid”
In academia, the goal should always be to strive towards a more perfect understanding of the world around us. Therefore, Victor should have been corrected and guided towards the more correct knowledge of the time. While it is understandable to allow the passion to develop with idealized versions of science, this needs to be tempered by actual scientific teachings.