Frankenstein
Captain Robert Walton
The Arctic explorer
A daring sea captain who writes letters to his sister from an icebound ship, rescues Victor from the ice, and hears his cautionary tale.
Robert Walton is a ship's captain on a voyage of discovery toward the North Pole. He writes his story as letters to his sister Margaret, so the opening and the closing of the book are in his words. He is daring, romantic and ambitious, and he is eager for glory.
He is also kind. When he finds a freezing stranger on a wrecked sledge, he takes him in, feeds him soup and tends his frostbite. He listens to Victor's story, and records every word. He says he would give his fortune and every hope to gain the knowledge he seeks, which is exactly what makes Victor weep. Walton is the reader's guide into the story, and he is changed by what he hears, learning to weigh his own hunger for glory against the cost.
“Margaret, I write to you from the vast icy plains of the North... where glory and discovery await us.”
In the story
Contains spoilers.
Walton's crew sees a gigantic figure cross the ice on a dog sledge, and the next day finds Victor on a floe. Victor tells Walton his life story as a warning. By the time he finishes, Victor is weakening, and gives Walton his final advice: seek happiness in tranquillity and avoid ambition.
Victor dies on the ship. Later that night, Walton walks into the cabin and finds the Creature weeping over the body. The Creature says he will build his own funeral pyre at the North Pole, leaps from the cabin window onto an ice raft, and is lost in the dark. Walton calls Victor a noble, unhappy friend.
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