Essential #9

How do Robert Walton and Victor Frankenstein compare and contrast as men, scholars, and scientists?

Both Robert Walton and Victor Frankenstein are men who both have an intense drive to achieve their goals and expand their knowledge. Robert Walton is setting off on his first journey to the North Pole. In contrast to Walton's inexperience, Frankenstein has already attempted to reach his goals and hopes that Walton "may deduce an apt moral from my [Frankenstein's] tale"(13). Both men are extremely curious as well as passionate, and even consumed by their intellectual hunger. In their quest for education, both initially researched their passions themselves without any outside help. In Walton's case, his "education was neglected yet I [he] was passionately fond of reading"(2). Similarly, Frankenstein "was, to a great degree, self-taught with regard to my [his] favorite studies"(21). However, unlike Walton, Frankenstein's self education was supplemented with the schools of Geneva as well as the university of Ingolstadt. Scientifically speaking, Walton's expedition was focused on "discovering a passage near the pole [...] or by ascertaining the secret of the magnet"(2). Frankenstein's ventures included "discovering the cause of generation and life"(31).