"There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand. I am practically industrious — painstaking, a workman to execute with perseverance and labour — but besides this there is a love for the marvelous, a belief in the marvelous, intertwined in all my projects, which hurries me out of the common pathways of men, even to the wild sea and unvisited regions I am about to explore."
Shelley connects Robert Walton to Victor Frankenstein, foreshadowing how the novel will unravel. Walton seeks knowledge as he sets forth on his ship to discover the unknown, which is primarily what Frankenstein attempts to do as well by creating his monster. Both men sacrifice living comfortably in familiarity in order to obtain the uncharted secrets of their respective fields. They also tend to steer away from normal social interactions with others, although both are lonely and in dire need for a mate. Eventually, the monster fits similarly into these descriptions.
feels like it wants just one last sentence that brings it all together and reasserts Shelley in there.
ReplyDelete"There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand. I am practically industrious — painstaking, a workman to execute with perseverance and labour — but besides this there is a love for the marvelous, a belief in the marvelous, intertwined in all my projects, which hurries me out of the common pathways of men, even to the wild sea and unvisited regions I am about to explore."
ReplyDeleteShelley connects Robert Walton to Victor Frankenstein, foreshadowing how the novel will unravel. Walton seeks knowledge as he sets forth on his ship to discover the unknown, which is primarily what Frankenstein attempts to do as well by creating his monster. Both men sacrifice living comfortably in familiarity in order to obtain the uncharted secrets of their respective fields. They also tend to steer away from normal social interactions with others, although both are lonely and in dire need for a mate. This common character trend applies to the monster as well, once he has been introduced in the novel. Perhaps the intent that Shelley has is to make all of her characters posses similar traits to demonstrate that either way, people's lives can always have completely different outcomes than those of others with similar lifestyles.