How might we read Victor Frankenstein's warning to Walton that he "ardently hopes that the gratification of [his] wishes may not be a serpent to sting...

Like ,
Walton is full of ardent hopes and ambitions. 's are to find and explore new lands in the Arctic
regions of the earth. As he writes to his sister, he wishes to "triumph" in his
journey; he asks her,

What can stop the determined heart
and resolved will of man?

Victor realizes that Walton is
a privileged and innocent young man like he once was: ambitious and willing to take risks to
make a mark on the world. Therefore, he decides to tell Walton his story of creatingin hopes
that it will function as a cautionary and moral tale not to let one's ambitions overtake one's
life.

In the quote "I ardently hope that the gratification of your
wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been," Victor is saying that getting
what you wish for can come come back to bite you and poison your life, which is similar to being
bitten by a snake. The snake is also anto the Garden of Eden, where the snake tempted Eve to
give in to her desires and eat of the forbidden fruit of the knowledge of good and
evil.

Both Victor and Walton are scientists and value knowledge. But Victor
is warning that knowledge can be dangerous and that gratifying one's monomaniacal desire for it
can throw a person into a hellish existence. As he alludes to his sorrowful story, which neither
Walton nor the reader has yet heard, he fills us with curiosity about what happened to him to
lead him to misery and to this desolate region of the earth.