Themes, Ideas and Messages GapFill

This quiz relates to AO1 and AO3.

After discovering a text by Cornelius Agrippa, Victor is inspired to study the writings of  ParacletusPtolemyPlatoParacelsus and  Magnus AlbertoAlbertus MagniMagnus MagnusAlbertus Magnus. This is early evidence of Victor's ambition and intellectual curiosity; he interprets his own interest in these writings as a desire to understand  the secrets of magicthe secrets of naturethe secrets of lifethe secret society, and initially believes the answers to lie in the study of  medicinephysicschemistryalchemy. However, while appreciating the industriousness of modern  writersdoctorsphilosophersmathematicians, Victor always feels unsatisfied after reading their works. He considers a quotation by Sir  Isaac NewtonJames WattFrancis BaconJames Hutton, that he felt 'like a child picking up   seaweedflotsam and jetsamshellspebbles beside the great and unexplored ocean of truth' (Chapter 2). Although just a boy, Victor considers Newton's successors in the field of  natural philosophymathematicsnatural historybiology to be   impostorstyrosidlersfantasists by comparison to the renowned scientist. However, the deaths of both Frankenstein and the monster in the icy wastes of the North Pole reveal Victor's folly in placing all his efforts and faith in science, as it cannot shape   natureGodmedicinepeople to its will. Victor's work is bound up with the idea of his personal  destinystatuswealthcrisis. This idea is reinforced by the way he repeatedly alludes to his fate and his   hungerweaknessthirsthatred for knowledge, firstly, and then for revenge against the monster, as if these courses of action were as necessary to him as water. It can be argued that Shelley's novel, in its concern with Victor's story as one of predetermined destiny and punishment for defying the natural order, owes much to the   JacobeanClassicalRestorationRomantic era of literature and the idea of   reasondisorderrevengehubris.