In Shelley’s story we’re given a unique insight into the lives of three different men, and the things that drove them. Shelley uses Walton, Frankenstein, and The Monster to show us the same personality in three different lives, and how all three were linked by the same passionate spirit.
Early in the story Walton’s letters show him to have a thirst for knowledge, and in one of his letters to his sister he says, “I am going to unexplored regions, to ‘the land of mist and snow;’ but I shall kill no albatross, therefore do not be alarmed for my safety” (Shelley 11). Later however we are shown how strongly his passion drove him (and how close he came to ruin), when he writes, “How all this will terminate, I know not; but I had rather die, than return shamefully” (Shelley 150). Walton possessed reason and compassion, but his passion for knowledge and the unknown brought him to the brink of madness.
Where Walton is shown to us as being in the budding stages of lust for knowledge, Frankenstein shows us the realization of those desires. In reflecting on his creation, and having realized how far from sanity his passion had driven him, Frankenstein tells Walton, “A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind, and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquillity. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule” (Shelley 33). Frankenstein realized that his reckless pursuit of knowledge had set his feet on the path to destruction, and was what ultimately brought him to his end.
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