by Emily Adams

Created on: June 21, 2008

The character of Walton, like Frankenstein, was on a journey of discovery for the enlightenment of man. This pursuit can only be considered rational and beneficial for civilization, and undoubtedly fell under the characteristics that classified honorable society of the time. But the pursuit of his goals made him excessively ambitious, leading him towards insanity and incivility, his own "Otherness".

Walton is on a voyage to the North Pole to "discover a passage from the pole to those countries, to reach which at present so many months are requisite, or by ascertaining the secret of the magnet."(8). Years after a neglected childhood education, he has found a passion for knowledge and is pursuing it to the far depths of the ocean and into the uninhabited world. This fervor becomes a driving force for Walton, and although he scatters declarations of his intent to benefit society in his letters to his sister Margaret, his focus remains on himself: "And now, dear Margaret, do I not deserve to accomplish some great purpose? My life might have been passed with ease and luxury, but I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path."(9). Altruistic objectives are expected of him in this journey, but these concerns were forgotten; his self-serving ambition overtook any additional focus.
As Walton becomes more and more interested in the seafaring life, the regret felt as a child due to his father's dying wish for Walton not to engage in the maritime life deepened, and Walton eventually defies him. For him to maintain that same regret, act on it, and then write lightly of it to a relative is almost inhuman, "My familiarity with them (volumes of book) increased that regret which I felt, as a child, on learning that my father's dying injunction had forbidden my uncle to allow me to embark in a sea-faring life."(8). A parent's dying wish is usually held in the highest regard and Walton's treatment of it suggests that his ambition has overcome his priorities. He inured his body to hardship, "voluntarily endured cold, famine, thirst, and want of sleep"(8). Walton uses this sentence in his letter to Margaret to prove that he deserves the success that he is seeking, but voluntarily enduring these adversities is both irrational and unnatural for civilized men. Walton writes, "My lieutenant, for instance, is a man of wonderful courage and enterprise; he is madly desirous of glory."(10). Not only does Walton state "madly desirous of glory" as one of the first praises

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