Mary Shelley’s
Chapter Numbers: LETTERS 1-4
THE LETTERS

The Letters begin with
Captain Robert Walton, from
England, who is on an
expedition to the North Pole.
He is searching for the source
of magnetism in the regions,
but in larger part, he is on a
quest to see new places, and
to make a name for himself
by going where no man has
gone before him.

To pass the time while he is
on his trip, he writes letters
home to his sister, Margaret.
In these letters, Walton tells
his sister that he has no
friends and feels very lonely.
He feels that he is too good
for the other men on the ship,
and that no one could
possible understand him
because he’s so smart and
sensitive. Walton thinks of
himself as a classic tragic
Romantic figure.
THE LETTERS

As the ship sets sail,
Walton is overly confident
about the outlook for his
trip. He is so confident and
optimistic, that the reader
begins to realize that
something bad is surely
about to happen.

And then, in Letter 4, the
ship gets stuck in sheets of
ice in the ocean. As this
ship is stuck, the crew sees
a giant figure in the
distance going across the
ice on what Shelley calls a
“sledge”, which is another
term for a dog sled. The
crew is getting restless and
a little frightened.
THE LETTERS

The next day, the ship crew
finds another man on
another sledge. This man
is stranded with all but one
of his dogs, dead. The man
looks like he is on the verge
of death himself

The crew brings the man
aboard the ship, rubs his
body with brandy and gets
him drunk to warm him up.
Walton becomes very
possessive of the man. He
hopes that this guy will
become the friend he’s
never had. Walton
becomes strangely
possessive and attached to
the man.
THE LETTERS

The letters end with Walton telling his sister that the man
they found in the ice is going to tell his story the next day.
CAPTAIN ROBERT WALTON
At this point in the story,
Walton is a lonely explorer,
and he gets his crew stuck in
ice. In this icy, polar region,
he comes into contact with
the Monster and with Victor.
 He is a tragic Romantic hero
because he rejects norms and
conventions, in a way, his
loneliness is similar to being
rejected by society, and he
views himself as the center of
his existence. In other words,
everything is all about him.


We do not find out more
about Walton until the end
of the story, but at this
point the reader begins to
put together that he will
have a lot in common with
both Victor and the
Monster.
VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN

At this point we don’t know
anything about Victor,
except that he was chasing
some giant creature
through the rough and
deadly terrain of the north
pole on a dog sled.
MARGARET

This is Robert Walton’s
sister. We know nothing
about her except that
Walton feels connected to
and loved by her, and we
get to know him through
his letters to her.
SETTING

At this point in the story,
we see that frame
narrative is taking place (a
story within a story), and
the setting in the letters is
aboard Walton’s ship in the
frozen waters of the arctic.
ALLUSIONS

What is important to note
about the setting at this point
in the story is that everyone is
stuck in frozen water. This is
a literary allusion to Dante’s
Inferno; the ninth circle of hell
is reserved for those who
have committed betrayal. All
sinners are stuck in frozen
water, up to their shoulders,
or necks or eyes, or whatever,
depending on just how bad
their betrayal was.
SYMBOLISM / ALLEGORY

The entire story of
exploration for knowledge is
symbolized by Captain
Walton’s quest for the North
Pole. It also becomes a
cautionary tale and allegory
about the dangers of
boundless science. This
symbolism and allegory will
be spread out through the
entire novel
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

This part of the novel doesn’t
directly connect specifically
to Mary Shelley’s life; but it
does connect to the time
period during which she
wrote it. Shelley began
Frankenstein in 1818, which
was right on the brink of the
Industrial Revolution (which
went on in the 1820’s).