senseless curiosity
This phrase represents another instance of the complexity of verbal
resonance we encounter late in Mary
Shelley's novel. It was, as Victor
Frankenstein himself acknowledged, curiosity about the Creature he pursued
(Letter 4.4) that first animated the
interest of Walton and his crew. In the very beginning Walton had
characterized his driving passion as an "ardent curiosity" (Letter 1.2), and it is this trait that
most obviously links him with the obsessive scientific pursuits that
Victor early on associated with the realm of the "lawless" (1.7.1). Yet, it is the same trait that
compels Victor to listen to the Creature's naration (2.2.7) below Mont Blanc and that will
restrain Walton from attacking him (Walton
13) upon his reappearance in the final pages. Thus, what leads to an
antisocial solipsism can also be an instrument for transcending rigid
barriers and reestablishing social relationships through sympathy. The
strongly oppositional ways in which curiosity functions in the novel may
suggest that this most human (and Romantic) attribute is inherently
neither good nor bad, but is merely an instrument, neutral in itself, that
should never be dissociated from our common "sense" of the ends it
pursues.
