Victor Frankenstein is from the very first moment immersed in a love affair with science. He has an overwhelming ambition and buries himself in the works of Paracelsis, Albertus Magnus, and Cornelius Agrippa. When he sees the tree blasted by the lightening bolt around age 13, he is absolutely hooked. He uses the word "blasted" several times afterward to describe both his ambition, his creation, and his mental state as he attempts to create a second creature.
He hopes to discover how to bring people back to life after they've died, or at the very least put his name in the history books for some other great thing that no one else has ever done. The pursuit of knowledge in the area of science (and also nature as he hopes to "discover the inner workings of the world around me") propel him forward and sicken him throughout the entire book.
When he becomes sick--either physically, mentally, or spiritually--as he often does throughout the novel due to neglect of his nutrition, guilt for what he has done, or some fever, Victor always turns to the beauty of nature to bring him back to life. He often takes long walks and trips into the mountains and valleys of Geneva and other European towns. You will find it very difficult to open the novel at any point and not find pages of descriptions about the beauty of nature.
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