Cautionary Tales Revealed in "The Research Proposal

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He does not care because he is greedy. Victor is the same way. He wants the knowledge of how nature works. He is curious and this eventually gets the best of him. He says, "I would sacrifice my fortune, my existence, my every hope, to the furtherance of my enterprise. One man's life or death was but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought" (Shelley 13). Victor realizes the folly of his ways but it is too late to salvage anything that he has lost. Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler agrees with this assumption, noting that the irony of the story is that, "at the culmination of his research, the moment of his triumph, all Victor's pleasure in life ends" (Hoobler 159). Both men are consumed and actually believe that they possess some of the characteristics of God.

Both men suffer from their selfish desires. Aylmer wants so desperately to change Georgiana's appearance, that he kills her. The sad aspect of this story is the fact that she let him talk her into the entire thing. She let him believe that she was not pretty enough and that she needed to be prettier. She also let her husband think that he could do it. In other words, she believed in him and was willing to risk her life on his guess. Even worse, Aylmer believes in himself enough to risk her life as well. He is full of enough foolishness to say, "Unless all my science have deceived me, it cannot fail" (Hawthorne 611). His failure is the equivalent of murder. Victor loses everyone he loves because of his over-confidence. Once the monster is alive, Victor has no control over him or his emotions and never considers that the creature might seek revenge when it is too late to do anything about it. He realizes his folly and admits that his efforts pushed him "lower in the dirt" (Shelley 194) and he tells Walton, "Seek happiness in tranquility and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries" (200).

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Neither Aylmer not Victor gets what they thought they would when all is said and done. Hawthorne and Shelley use the destructive results of these men to warn us about the dangers involved with a desire that has gone out of control.

These men demonstrate that while we want to control certain forces of nature, it is never a good thing to do so. The fact that both men were inclined to conducting experiments and solving mysteries works against them because they feel compelled to be the first man to achieve their goals. Aylmer foolishly believes that his next experiment will be the one that becomes a success. His desire to be a success blinds his logic and his ability to consider that he might make a mistake. Victor is also blinded by his desire. He is also like Aylmer in that he does not stop to think of any repercussions of his experiment. Both men want to defy the laws of nature and step into the role of God. They throw all reason aside to be the first kid on the block with the new and successful scientific experiment. Hawthorne and Shelley explore this aspect of humanity by forcing us to look at what can go wrong when humanity attempts to step outside of his place in the universe.

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