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.