Careful What You Wish For

Fulfilled Wishes and Regret

“I had often, when at home, thought it hard to remain during my youth cooped up in one place and longed to enter the world and take my station among other human beings. Now my desires were complied with, and it would, indeed, have been folly to repent.” (pg. 30)

In telling his story, Victor has already mentioned several times how much regret he feels in pursuing what ultimately lead to his demise. In this passage, he speaks of himself at a younger age when he hadn’t felt regret for any of his actions yet. Victor spent his entire youth wishing to be out in the world learning, only to have his wishing lead to a life of misery. Shelley uses Frankenstein as a vehicle to show the time-tested idea of being “careful what you wish for.”