Assignment #2: Parallels in Frankenstein

This essay is based on Frankenstein by Mary Shelley--the original 1818 version, not any of the later revisions. Very important, that.  It grew from her suggested essay topic on the point of having Robert Walton in the story and why the novel was framed as a series of letters by Walton to his sister.  Why not tell it some other way that required a less convoluted use of quotation marks?  I used this to draw parallels between Walton's journey and Frankenstein's (obviously).

Grade: A
Comments (excerpt, the good stuff): "This is a strong essay.  Your argument is clear and well-supported.  I particuarly like the way you incorporate quotations into your sentences."

"Brother of My Heart": The Parallels of Robert Walton and Victor Frankenstein

On an ambitious voyage to cross the North Pole, a self-educated man with intelligence, determination, and courage laments his lack of one vital component: a true friend and mentor, someone who shares his sensibilities and who can give him sound advice. In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, this man's wish is fulfilled, if only temporarily, by a mysterious, half-dead scientist who materializes out of the ice, bearing a story as chilling as the frozen sea and ultimately as deadly. The character of Robert Walton thus serves as a parallel to Victor Frankenstein, offering greater insights into the natures of both of these complex and unusual figures. Both Victor and Walton are driven to succeed at scientific endeavors that end in tragic failure, but neither fully understands the negative effects of their actions. Perhaps this is why they are both unable to learn from their mistakes.

Since he was a child Walton has read of the early exploratory sea voyages and has longed to have such an adventure himself; with the fortuitous arrival of a cousin's inheritance he proceeds to spend six years preparing himself mentally and physically for a journey towards the Pole. Walton hires on to various whaling ships that operate in the far north and specifically exposes himself to "cold, famine, thirst, and want of sleep" (7), and at night he teaches himself subjects "from which a naval adventurer might derive the greatest practical advantage" (7), such as mathematics and medicine. He journeys all the way to Russia to find a ship and an experienced crew to aid him in his expedition to "tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man" (6). Although clearly excited by the prospect of being the first person to explore the North Pole, Walton also points out "the inestimable benefit which [he] shall confer on all mankind to the last generation" (6) with his voyage; he imagines that he will single-handedly solve the questions of magnetism and astronomy, as well as discover a sea route across the Pole that will greatly speed travel. Walton's goals, and his certainty of attaining them, suggest an arrogant or at least overdramatic nature which realistically must be disappointed in the end.

Victor's general love of learning is also apparent in his childhood, but it is not until he begins studying science at college that he wonders about the nature and origin of life. With "an almost supernatural enthusiasm" (33) he learns anatomy and spends "days and nights in vaults and charnel houses" (34) to observe the processes of decay. After single-mindedly pursuing this goal, Victor finally "succeed[s] in discovering the cause of generation and life" (34) and becomes "capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter" (34); Walton's ability to stay on deck in the cold seems to pale a bit in comparison. Victor then tests his new knowledge by trying to build a human being, "with all its intricacies of fibres, muscles, and veins" (35), certain that he will succeed in spite of the complexities. He shuts himself away in his laboratory for months, driven by an "almost frantic impulse" (36), too busy to go outside, eat properly, or write the letters he promised his family. To find the materials for his project Victor breaks into cemeteries and crypts, the "dissecting room and the slaughterhouse" (37), and tells Walton in retrospect of desecrating graves with "profane fingers" (36), of torturing animals, and of "loathing" (37) his work. Repressing any personal objections he feels during the course of his labor, Victor tells himself that one day he might be able to "renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption" (36). His own arrogance is clear when he dreams that "a new species [will] bless [him] as its creator and source" (36), but his progress so far indicates that he may very well be able to accomplish his goals. Both he and Walton display an unnatural devotion to this pursuit of the knowledge and achievements that have so far escaped others.

Unfortunately, this devotion also leads to tragedy for both men, yet neither recognizes the extent of their own responsibility for the misfortune around them. Victor makes his constant personal agony and anguish quite well known in his story to Walton, ceaselessly repeating his sufferings caused by the violent deaths of his brother William, his best friend Henry, and his wife Elizabeth; other bodies left in his wake include Justine, a childhood playmate who is hanged for William's murder, and Victor's own father, who dies from the shock of "the horrors that were accumulated around him" (168). Victor places the sole blame for these deaths, and his own pain because of them, on the being he created as part of his "new species" (36), a being whose anger and despair lead to him murder. However, Victor never questions the larger morality of creating this being in the first place, and he never acknowledges how his own immediate abandonment of the creature in "breathless horror and disgust" (39) shaped his grim outlook on life. Victor certainly wishes he had never made this creature, whom he "turned loose upon society" (170), but rather than attempt to understand the creature's true motives he denounces his "'unparalleled malignity and selfishness, in evil'" (185). Victor's abuse of the creature, as well as his decision to wallow in angst rather than attempt to stop him, makes him at least partially responsible for his loved ones' deaths; he is even more culpable for Justine's death, since he knew she was innocent of William's murder and yet said nothing.

The tragedies from Walton's project are not as detailed, but they still exist. He could not have predicted the ice trapping his ship in the far north; and his crew members are not the innocent victims that Victor's friends and family are--they are experienced sailors who were aware of the dangers inherent in such a mission when they signed on. Still, as captain and financier of the expedition, he is responsible for the well-being of his crew. Yet when he reports the deaths of several of his sailors, who "have already found a grave amidst this scene of desolation" (182), he never blames himself or even expresses much sorrow--instead he calls them "unfortunate" (182), as though they were the unlucky but acceptable losses on such a voyage. The air is frigid; the ship is "in imminent danger of being crushed" (182), with crew members and most likely supplies running low; but aside from an occasional note about their circumstances, Walton is far more interested in listing Victor's every change in temperature than looking after his ship. He simply dismisses his crew's need for his leadership by announcing that he has "none to bestow" (181). His major concern on that subject seems to be that the sailors will mutiny and challenge his authority, making his earlier claims about his "prudence and considerateness whenever the safety of others is committed to [his] care" (10) sadly laughable.

If Victor and Walton cannot understand the magnitude of their mistakes, it is unlikely they will ever be able to learn from them. Walton says his crew is full of men of "dauntless courage" (8), veteran sailors "on whom [he] can depend" (8); yet when the same sailors later ask him to promise "that if the vessel should be freed, [he will] instantly direct [their] course southward" (182), abandoning their expedition, Walton wants to refuse them. He insists that, despite the dangers they face, he has not "yet conceived the idea of returning, if set free" (182) and writes that he would "rather die, than return shamefully,--my purpose unfulfilled" (183). When it becomes apparent he will either have to agree to return or be overruled, he gives in, but in his journal he blames the sailors for their "cowardice and indecision" (184) and wonders how he will "bear this injustice with patience" (184). That he feels this way after hearing Victor's story about the folly of unreasonable ambition and the obsessive quest for knowledge underscores his inability to see all the parallels between Victor's life and his. However, it is difficult to fault Walton for not learning anything from Victor's tale when even Victor appears to learn nothing. Having just spent the last several days relating his life to Walton and reflecting upon his behavior, he concludes that he does not "find it blameable" (185); ironically, Victor reports that on his trip to England with Henry, when he feared every moment that the creature might attack, he felt like he had "committed some great crime, the consciousness of which haunted" (135) him--yet he believed even then that he was "guiltless" (135). By the end of his life Victor does not even blame his rational self for making the creature; rather he waves it off as "a fit of enthusiastic madness" (185). Although Victor finally acknowledges that he had a responsibility "to assure...his happiness and well-being" (185), he still believes the creature "ought to die" (185) and that his greater duty towards humanity takes precedence over anything he owes the creature. He even asks Walton more than once "to undertake [his] unfinished work" (185), the destruction of the creature. Victor cannot see the similarities between his situation and Walton's; when the sailors confront Walton about going back home, it is Victor who gives them a supposedly stirring speech urging them to "'[r]eturn as heroes who have fought and conquered, and who know not what it is to turn their backs on the foe'" (183). Victor dies, but his story of misery has not imparted any lesson to his host and friend; it is entirely possible that Walton will simply set out on another expedition with another crew at another time, perhaps an expedition that will have even more disastrous consequences.

Throughout Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Robert Walton's admiration for the title character is obvious in every mention of Victor, whom he even describes as "noble and godlike in ruin" (179). In their passion for the sciences and their stubborn pursuit of the unknown they are very similar; in fact they are too similar for Victor to be the kind of rational advisor and friend Walton longs for. Neither truly understands the tragedies their obsessions have yielded, and neither is able to learn from their own or one another's mistakes. Instead of the characters benefitting from these parallels, only the reader can use them to understand Victor and Walton better. By the end of the novel Victor no longer has to worry about either his miseries or his objectives, but in the world of Frankenstein, Walton is still out there, perhaps dangerously emboldened by the final words of a man he regarded as "the brother of [his] heart" (15).