by Being a scientist entails very little moral obligation, but being a good or righteous scientist requires moral obligations to do what is the best for humanity, even if that means sacrificing your reputation. Mary Shelly’s dissects this topic throughout her novel, Frankenstein. The book takes the reader through a Gothic and gloomy world following a scientist named Victor who is constantly running from and is tortured by his own curiosity. Victor, aiming to find an elixir of life, finds what he was looking for, but not the way he had hoped. The very instant his creation had come to life he was filled with fear and regret, the same fear which stopped him from preventing the rest of the damage that will ensue. The reaction Victor had the moment he achieved his goal and found an elixir of youth was far from what the reader would have expected. He ran from his achievement and lets it destroy his life rather than celebrating and confronting his creation. Mary Shelly uses Victor’s flaws to show that often scientists envision only the good parts of their curiosity, expecting glorious results when they achieve their goals. However, when they achieve what they sought, they discover all the bad parts of it instead and hide their mistakes in fear.
What Victor envisioned before he electrified his lifeless abomination is up to the reader’s interpretation; perhaps he only saw the fame and glory after his discovery, but when the creature came to life he was struck with the realization that what stood before him was monstrous and unnatural. In chasing his curiosity he had no expectations, just the desire to know if his invention will work. When his curiosity was met by outcome he didn’t know what to do and ran from his success. So now this benign creature was trained by abandonment and disgust by others into hating humanity. If only Victor had stayed, properly handled his experiment, told others about it, the havoc it wreaked could have all been avoided. Frankenstein’s experiment is an example of how scientists who create something dangerous, often fear the punishment of addressing it, and in hiding allow damage to be done to the world.
Victor is still a morally good person because he felt guilt for his creation and the actions he took proceeding the experiment, but that does not translate to being a good scientist. This supports Mary Shelly’s point that scientists will envision something good and work towards it, but when it goes south they hide in fear of the consequences they personally will face. So Victor is not a bad person, but he is a weak person and consequently a bad scientist. A good scientist addresses their mistakes and warns the world about what they know. Instead Victor hid and him and his family paid a bigger price than if he dealt with it properly. Scientists should always aim to satisfy their curiosity, but only with the personal expectation that they will deal with whatever they find properly to prevent unforeseen harm to others.