Where Every Scroll is a New Adventure
What do you think of Robert Walton? I love that silly sailor very dearly and in one of your post you said that he was a little like Percy Shelley and I'm really curious to know why that is :]
i can't believe i've never shared my waltonthoughts before!!! in short
to be honest for a pretty large majority of my frankenstein fandom time i've been fairly apathetic about walton? (sorry robin š) i felt really really bad because i couldn't quite pinpoint why; he's an intriguing character with some really interesting stuff going on, his narration is charming and incredibly complex but i just i don't know. he didn't arouse my curiosity and desire to analyze like the other characters did (i admit my frankenstein rereads i kinda. skip the letters at the beginning. i know i am so sorry). it might be that he's quite far removed from the themes in frankenstein that really intrigue me like mental illness, neurodivergency, and generational trauma so nothing abt him stuck out to me
but!!! i am no longer apathetic about him! i thought it would feel like a chore to go through his letters with a fine toothed comb but walton represents what i think is a really underrepresented dichotomy: he's very industrious and self-efficacious, kinda like one of those self made millionaire crypto bros, with a privileged station and promising, comfortable future, but he has this wanderlust for life and beauty and romance that he cant really reconcile with his and it causes him a lot of distress and loneliness. when he meets victor he thinks he finds someone that can satisfy this longing for the romantic and sublime, someone attractive, intelligent, engaging, and ostensibly an avatar of the tragic romantic figure - walton thinks that this is the only proxy by which he can be understood and further understand himself, the only adequate vessel for this longing, which is probably why he attaches onto victor so obsessively. victor is tragic, beautiful, pitiful, complex, fallen from grace, and because of his idealism and thirst for a romantic story walton thinks he can save them both. especially because they knew each other for a relatively short period of time, i don't know to what extent walton loves victor or just loves the narrative of loving victor. in the idiot by dostoevsky prince myshkin says of natasya filippovna "i love her not with love, but with pity" and i think that might be what's going on with walton and victor. i need to spend more time thinking about that though
on the subject of him being like percy the major similarity i noticed is that walton, being an orphan, was raised by his older sister, and ive seen some people attribute his emotional and "effeminate" nature to his being raised under her "gentle and feminine fosterage"; similarly, percy shelley was very close to his mother and sisters in his youth, and ive seen a couple scholars attribute his sentimentality of character and feminist-adjacent ideas (like free love) to his being close to female figures in his childhood and young adulthood. probably a stretch but i just think it's kinda interesting. the two also share some other similarities like being poets in profession (or at least trying to be š) and veneration for nature
i think i had more to say but my brain power is depleted š im so so so sorry it took me so long to get around to this ask!!! i had to do a little rereading and critical thinking which is yucky