Quest for Friendship vs. Loneliness - Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Authors Avatar

Quest for Friendship vs. Loneliness

Justine Jennings

English 3H

February 10, 2004


The loyalty! The trust! The intimacy! Creating friendships is a complex aspect that the human race craves. A valuable slice of needs included in one large pie of necessities. Yet, the cravings to create companionship can be unsatisfied by the seeker. In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley reveals loneliness and the desire for friendship in Robert Walton, Victor Frankenstein and the monster.

Robert Walton expresses his need for a companion on his journey to the North Pole. For example, as he is composing his letters to his sister at the beginning of his journey, he writes, “But I have one want which I have yet been able to satisfy; and the absence of the object of which I now feel as a most severe evil. I have no friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy; if I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavor to sustain me in dejection” (4). Walton finds himself in solitude, an unintentional mishap, due to his quest for a friend. His exploration of the secluded Arctic causes his ambitious pursuit to remove him from society, leaving him with a crewmates and no desire to converge with them. However, as his journey continues, Walton discovers a man, about which he writes, “I said in one of my letters, my dear Margaret, that I should find no friend on the wide ocean; yet I have found who, before his spirit had been broken by misery, I should have been happy to have possessed as the brother of my heart” (11). Walton readily accepts his newfound acquaintance as a friend he never had; an eager ear waiting to listen to his dreams and ambitions. He views Victor as his companion, in order for him to play the role as friend and be treated likewise. Walton’s isolation from the world parallels that of Victor Frankenstein and his ambitious attempts and loneliness.

Join now!

Victor Frankenstein continually separates himself from his real life and his social life, barring himself from friendships. For instance,  while working on his monster, “The summer months passed while I was thus engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit…And the same feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me caused me also to forget those friends who were so many miles absent, and whom I had not seen for so long a time” (33). Victor deliberately dismisses the thoughts of his friends due to his eagerness and ambitious attempts to create life. His secrecy and absorption in his creation isolates ...

This is a preview of the whole essay