Frankenstein: To Volume II, Chapter III

Is Walton like Victor?

In my opinion, there is no definite yes or no answer to this question because it can swing both ways. First, yes, because both are preoccupied with a life goal and journey and will stop at nothing to complete it. Yes also because both crave the fame of accomplishment, that is they focus on the destination not the journey. But mostly, I think no, although it is difficult to say since we do not know as much about Walton still. Yet no because, unlike Victor, Walton does not endeavor on his adventures for very long. He gave up being a poet after only a year, where Victor worked two years in solitude on the monster. Also, Walton still keeps in contact with his family where as Victor does not. Furthermore, Walton has not sacrificed his own life for the fulfillment of his end goal. Overall, I think they have similar character traits, or maybe the same potential for success or disaster, I think they are overall different. I guess it's like they are two different branches made of the same root tree.

The more you love someone the more they can hurt you. How does this apply to Victor?
This especially applies to his mother, who doted on him all the time, and who loved him more than any other parents could love a creature.


There are three main allusions of poetry in Frankenstein:

The first is the Greek story of Promethius: He gave fire to the humans, and because of this the gods punished him for giving us so much power, is chained to the top of a mountain and punished daily for eternity. It is symbolic of Victor, who wants to defeat human mortality and is punished thenceforth.

The other poems are "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "Alaster." The Mariner is an old man who stops a man from going to a wedding and tells him his story. There was a bird who came to the ship everyday, whenever the old mariner called him and was loyal and faithful. Then one day the old mariner shot it with an arrow. Because of this, everything goes wrong, his whole crew dies. They are so angry at him they hang the albatross around his neck. Then in the moonlight, the slimy snakes inside him change to beauty and he is allowed to come back to land. His curse is that he must re-tell the story over and over. Why would you kill someone who loved you unconditional, like the bird, or like kids, or Jesus? The truth is that unconditional love is scary as hell! You either think you are unworthy or the pain would be too much, our instinct is to stay away. The mariner makes the wedding guest recognize the fear that comes with unconditional love, with the union of one person with another. If you push it away first, if you kill it first, you save yourself the heartbreak.

There is a similar message in "Alastor" (p. 247). Alastor is story about a poet traveling all around the world looking for truth. He goes to Egypt to discover the truth of time. He stays with an Arab and while he is there, a maid falls in love with him but does not say anything. He does not realize it, and continues to travel and one night he dreams about her, and realizes she is just like him, they are soul mates. In the dream, she throws himself into his arms and they are about to consummate their love but then he awakens and she is gone. He then begins to travel around the world looking for her. The poet has "spurned her choicest gifts," or didn't take the opportunity when he had it. Then he ends up dying while searching for the maid.

How do they resemble Victor? Like the mariner he is trying to tell his story so that others might not make the same mistakes as he did. Because of his decision, everything around him becomes black and scary and makes his existence worse, as shown when he fears his old landscape when returning home and also created the monster who begins to destroy his family and friends at home. Similarly, he spurns nature's choicest gifts by going against nature and also forsaking the true nature and things he used to find joy in, like being outside and being with his family. He does not pursue relationships with women or with his family or his betrothed. Yet what were these feelings that caused him to neglect nature and his loved ones?

"On a dreary night in November" the monster becomes alive. He initially thought he was beautiful but on deeper observation he is awful, yellow and terrifying, he looks like living death. When he realizes this he runs out and decides he never wants to see the creature again, and he is horrified at what he has done. That night he dreamed that he sees Elizabeth but then changes to his dead mother, suggesting that he wanted to create the monster so that he could bring back his mother from the dead or prevent Elizabeth from dying. Thus, perhaps building the monster and ignoring Elizabeth are an attempt to prevent her from hurting him and to prevent him the pain of losing her. He is afraid of living in a world without her. It's part of what motivates him, but in a bad way.

Furthermore, the monster's first attempt at human contact was with Victor, who screams and runs out of the room. Later, Victor meets Henry Clerval and takes him back to the apartment to find that the monster has left. He has a manic attack of relief, and then falls fatally ill with hallucinations and nervous fever about the monster. Clerval then takes care of him and after some time Victor becomes "as cheerful as before I was attacked by the fatal passion" (41). In this passage he does not take responsibility for his own actions and claims that fate attacked him, and he is an innocent bystander. He is passive, saying fate attacked me, instead of I made the mistake.

This passive outlook also applies to the death of Justine for the acclaimed murder of his brother William. He doesn't say anything for fear of people thinking he was mad. He wants to step up but was unable to because of, possibly, his fear of people thinking him insane, especially Elizabeth. He will not confess to his own mistakes, he thinks that he can't prove it and says fate had it that this is the way it would be. He was the one who was guilty and lets other innocents suffer for his mistakes, claiming alone that it was fate. On p 63-4, Victor says he cannot be consoled, and while Elizabeth was sad the could not suffer like him. Victor claims the quote of Satan (who was cast out of heaven to create hell, who suffers more than anyone else), he claims that he is suffering more than anyone else; translation: feel sorry for me the most, he is an egotist. This reflects Victors greatest desire to be the greatest, at everything and ignores others.