Frankenstein, Letter1 - 1 views
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Vanessa Vaile on 19 Aug 12setting tone of exploration and discovery, extremes, benefiting "all mankind" Note parallels to Victor F's purposes and experiment. Image of scientific discovery as a northern passage Compare to history, obsessions and loss of associated with the Northwest Passage ~ for that matter, bear in mind the Columbus was search for a passage to the East. Explorations = the history of unintended consequences
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discovering a passage near the pole to those countries
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ascertaining the secret of the magnet,
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This expedition has been the favourite dream of my early years.
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a history of all the voyages made for purposes of discovery composed the whole of our good Uncle Thomas' library
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my father's dying injunction had forbidden my uncle to allow me to embark in a seafaring life.
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I also became a poet and for one year lived in a paradise of my own creation;
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oh Shelley, self-elected and unacknowledged legislator of the world (see Defence of Poetry)
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my failure
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Six years have passed since I resolved on my present undertaking. I can, even now, remember the hour from which I dedicated myself to this great enterprise.
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Letter 2 Archangel, 28th March, 17— To Mrs. Saville, England
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How slowly the time passes here, encompassed as I am by frost and snow
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I have one want
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I have no friend
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I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling. I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me
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it is a still greater evil to me that I am self-educated
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My lieutenant, for instance, is a man of wonderful courage and enterprise; he is madly desirous of glory, or rather, to word my phrase more characteristically, of advancement in his profession.
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I heard of a mariner equally noted for his kindliness of heart and the respect and obedience paid to him by his crew, I felt myself peculiarly fortunate in being able to secure his services
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"What a noble fellow!" you will exclaim. He is so; but then he is wholly uneducated: he is as silent as a Turk, and a kind of ignorant carelessness attends him, which, while it renders his conduct the more astonishing, detracts from the interest and sympathy which otherwise he would command.
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I cannot describe to you my sensations on the near prospect of my undertaking. It is impossible to communicate to you a conception of the trembling sensation, half pleasurable and half fearful, with which I am preparing to depart. I am going to unexplored regions
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I shall kill no albatross; therefore do not be alarmed for my safety or if I should come back to you as worn and woeful as the "Ancient Mariner."
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Continue for the present to write to me by every opportunity: I may receive your letters on some occasions when I need them
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Letter 3 July 7th, 17— To Mrs. Saville, England
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I write a few lines in haste to say that I am safe—and well advanced on my voyage. This letter will reach England by a merchantman now on its homeward voyage from Archangel
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No incidents have hitherto befallen us that would make a figure in a letter
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Adieu, my dear Margaret
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Letter 4 August 5th, 17— To Mrs. Saville, England
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So strange an accident has happened to us that I cannot forbear recording it, although it is very probable that you will see me before these papers can come into your possession.
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we were nearly surrounded by ice, which closed in the ship on all sides
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we beheld, stretched out in every direction, vast and irregular plains of ice, which seemed to have no end.
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a strange sight suddenly attracted our attention and diverted our solicitude from our own situation
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a being which had the shape of a man, but apparently of gigantic stature, sat in the sledge and guided the dogs
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by ice, it was impossible to follow his track,
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before night the ice broke and freed our ship.
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talking to someone in the sea. It was, in fact, a sledge, like that we had seen before, which had drifted towards us in the night on a large fragment of ice. Only one dog remained alive; but there was a human being within it
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1st appearance of Victor Frankenstein, in futile pursuit of his creation / criado
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will you have the kindness to inform me whither you are bound?"
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His limbs were nearly frozen, and his body dreadfully emaciated by fatigue and suffering. I never saw a man in so wretched a condition
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Two days passed in this manner before he was able to speak, and I often feared that his sufferings had deprived him of understanding.
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I never saw a more interesting creature: his eyes have generally an expression of wildness, and even madness, but there are moments when, if anyone performs an act of kindness towards him or does him any the most trifling service, his whole countenance is lighted up, as it were, with a beam of benevolence
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generally melancholy and despairing, and sometimes he gnashes his teeth
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"To seek one who fled from me."
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a multitude of questions concerning the route which the demon, as he called him, had pursued
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a new spirit of life animated the decaying frame of the stranger.
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He must have been a noble creature in his better days,
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attractive and amiable
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How can I see so noble a creature destroyed by misery without feeling the most poignant grief?
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One man's life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought, for the dominion I should acquire and transmit over the elemental foes of our race.
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"we are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves—such a friend ought to be—do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures. I once had a friend, the most noble of human creatures, and am entitled, therefore, to judge respecting friendship.
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You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been.
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the stranger said to me,
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exposing yourself to the same dangers which have rendered me what I am, I imagine that you may deduce an apt moral from my tale,
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my fate is nearly fulfilled. I wait but for one event, and then I shall repose in peace
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he would commence his narrative the next day
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Strange and harrowing must be his story, frightful the storm which embraced the gallant vessel on its course and wrecked it—thus!
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Letters from Walton to his sister, opening the book, frontispiece or front bookend framing the story.
