Albert Einstein once said, “I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” In other words, one needs to step outside knowledge in order to explore and encompass the world beyond its boundaries. In Mark Shelley’s Frankenstein, Robert Walton steps outside his comfort of knowledge to explore “a part of the world never before visited…a land never before imprinted by the foot of man” (Shelley 6). When one embarks on a journey to an unknown place, the mind no longer dwells inside the boundaries of one’s knowledge, but rather, one reaches into their imagination. This idea is evident in Frankenstein as Walton’s desire to surpass previous human explorations and discover the unknown opens his mind to his imagination.
Frankenstein opens with four letters, each written by an Englishman Robert Walton to his beloved sister Margaret describing his journey as he departs from Russia to the North Pole. Before Walton even begins his journey, he lets his mind wonder past the limits of his knowledge, imagining the pole to be “the seat of frost and desolation…the region of beauty and delight… [where] the sun is visible” (Shelley 5). Even before Walton enters this unknown world, he opens his mind to imagination, describing the scenery of what he envisions the North Pole to appear like. Furthermore, “this expedition has been the favorite dream of [his] early years” (Shelley 7). Shelley gives the readers insight that Walton has been imagining this voyage to the North Pole since he was a little boy. Despite his excitement to “fix his intellectual eye” (Shelley 7), Robert feels this “trembling sensation, half pleasurable and half fearful” (Shelley 15) of what he might encounter in these unexplored regions. This is the result of Robert’s imagination picturing different scenarios of what might occur on his expedition.
In the fourth letter, the stranger tells Walton, “You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been” (Shelley 28). This quote leads me to ask, is it our imagination that gives us this desire to seek for knowledge? At what point does our imagination hurt us, or better yet, disappoint us?
Our imagination certainly does lead us to seek for knowledge on various instances. I think that our imagination does benefit us because it allows our mind to wonder and be creative, but at the same time sometimes our imagination gets too far away from reality which can be a problem.
I think that imagination can be both an aid and a detriment. Imagination can push you beyond conventional limits to discover previously unknown knowledge. However, imagination can also set you up for disappointment. In Frankenstein’s case, his imagination set him up for huge success, and then later disappointed him with the completion of his project. I think that just like everything in life, imagination is only beneficial in moderation. Constantly living inside your imagination can set you up for failure, as well as disorient you from the real world. However, it is important to have some degree of imagination in order to defy conventional boundaries.
I feel that rather than imagination being a detriment at times, it instead can always be an aid. Frankenstein uses an extreme amount of imagination to create “the monster”, for in his mind a good purpose. However, the real problems for Frankenstein come when he stops imagining. Rather than see potential in his creation and imagining what lies beyond its outer appearance, Frankenstein childishly treats it like a monster. Thus he encounters numerous problems, which were each not caused by his imagination, but instead his lack of imagination