The industrial revolution and the enlightenment period in general prioritised the accumulation of knowledge above all else. Scientists had freed themselves of centuries of church dogma and had began a new quest based on Socratic thinking. The problem, as Shelley suggests, is that knowledge may be gathered and discoveries can be made faster than is safe.

Victor is obsessed with discovering the means to reanimation without ever thinking ahead to the consequences of his actions. The monster he creates may be read as a crime against nature, and so it is nature who punishes him - consider the changes in weather before any death.

In a more modern sense, this may be an early treatise on the need for a system of medical ethics. Does the Hippocratic oath apply to Victor?

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein - Themes