In the classic novel, Frankenstein, Mary Shelley saturates her plot with abundant foreshadowing, homage, and contrasting images. Contrasting images, used to set up characters, scenes or ideas, accentuate their respective meanings and characteristics. One of the most noteworthy contrasting images is found in Shelley's use of the natural and the artificial. Shelley's portrayal of Victor Frankenstein is dark and conniving. Frankenstein has sacrificed his entire life in the pursuit of knowledge, although his activities are taboo and deemed illegal: they are condemned as witchcraft. With the advent of science and experimentation during the 19th century, Shelley and many others feared (and still fear) that nature's secrets would be discovered. It was a common belief that nature was the province of God, not man, and that its secrets were best appreciated without an answer. Frankenstein's activities are therefore believed to have "the tendency to weaken your affections and destroy your taste for those simple pleasures (33)." As a result, Shelly shows the dichotomies between nature and science...