Robert Walton - Blog Posts
My design for Captain Robert Walton from the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley ♥
I always imagined him a very dashing and fashionable young man :)
Frankenstein Coraline AU
I saw some fanart of Adam (the creature) with button eyes and I just HAD to do it!
@aspidateasteism cuz I think they’ll like it (if I’m wrong, sorry Vic)
Frankenstein Heathers AU except everyone is out of character lol
FRANKENSTEIN, Mary Shelley | FRANKENSTEIN: A NEW MUSICAL, Mark Baron | MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN, Steph Lady | WISHBONE CLASSICS FRANKENSTEIN, Micheal Burgan | FRANKENSTEIN, Mary Shelley | A CATHEDRAL OF ALMOST LOVERS, cornflakesortoast | MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN, Steph Lady | FRANKENSTEIN, Joellen Bland | FRANKENSTEIN, Frank Darabont | FRANKENSTEIN, Mary Shelley
waltonstein, throughout several adaptations
i've noticed that some frankenstein adaptions that include walton (the only good ones ☝️🤓) choose to depict him as a naval officer (aesthetically, at the very least — one of my favourite examples is in the 2018 manchester royal exchange theatre production because well. LOOK AT HIM)
this phenomena is so interesting to me because he is explicitly Not that, textually
on one hand i get it because the correlation between polar exploration and the navy especially during the 18th and 19th centuries is there and makes sense; it’s an easy connection to make if you just want walton “on screen” and a visual short hand for the reason behind the type of journey he’s making (i.e. discovery service expedition to the arctic sent by the admiralty) without any real exploration of his character and the inner thoughts that he communicates to margaret (and ultimately the reader) through his letters
but walton himself makes the claim very early in his narrative that his voyage is entirely independent, and that he basically funded the entire thing himself (with a little help from his cousin, whoever they are/were). most importantly, because he was prohibited from going to sea as a boy by his father, he served on whaling ships for years to train himself mentally and physically:
Six years have passed since I resolved on my present undertaking. I can, even now, remember the hour from which I dedicated myself to this great enterprise. I commenced by inuring my body to hardship. I accompanied the whale-fishers on several expeditions to the North Sea; I voluntarily endured cold, famine, thirst, and want of sleep; I often worked harder than the common sailors during the day and devoted my nights to the study of mathematics, the theory of medicine, and those branches of physical science from which a naval adventurer might derive the greatest practical advantage. Twice I actually hired myself as an under-mate in a Greenland whaler, and acquitted myself to admiration. I must own I felt a little proud when my captain offered me the second dignity in the vessel and entreated me to remain with the greatest earnestness, so valuable did he consider my services.
his voyage is motivated not by any sort of command from above by lifelong ambition and self-interest. he considers what he can contribute to science and maritime navigation, which, granted, serves his country as much as it serves him; but to me it is primarily his passion for the sublime beauty that the arctic represents, even if the reality is much more dangerous than he could have predicted, that drives him forward. he needs to see it for himself, to know that he can do it, no matter the cost (sound like someone else we know?)
if i had to draw a comparison between walton and any real-life polar explorer from around the time frankenstein was written it would be william scoresby, an english scientist who began his own career on whaling ships (ironically he thought the open polar sea theory that walton espouses was complete bs — and he was right, lmao)
janice cavell’s article ‘The Sea of Ice and the Icy Sea: The Arctic Frame of Frankenstein’ has a lot more to say on this topic and i’d highly recommend it but i just have to include this extract here because i was so delighted to learn about some of the real people who likely inspired walton in shelley’s mind:
Here, then, was material for both the Creature's journey and Walton's doomed mission. Moreover, here Mary found a surname for her Arctic captain in the list of officers who served under Vitus Bering in 1733-41: Peter Lassenius, William Walton, Dmitri Laptiew, Jego Jendauro, Dmitri Owzin, Swen Waxel, Wasili Prontischischtschew, Michailo Plautin, and Alexander Scheltinga. Walton, the sole Englishman on this list of exotically named foreigners, was in command of the Hope (Müller, 1761:15, 26; on William Walton, see Cross, 2007:177-178). The ship's name reflects the most prominent characteristic of the fictional Walton, whose first name, Robert, may have been taken from Robert Thorne, the 16th-century originator of the open polar sea theory. Even though Walton's theories about the Arctic are opposed to Scoresby's, Mary may have intended to acknowledge Scoresby's status as both a whaler and a man of science when she had Walton train himself for his chosen career through whaling voyages.
like! the Real Walton’s ship being named the Hope and “the ship’s name reflects the most prominent characteristic of the fictional Walton” ohhhh i am NOT going to cry don’t LOOK at me
anyway this post doesn’t really have much of a point. i guess tl;dr i just think it’s more interesting that walton is canonically just some overly ambitious guy with big dreams and more money than he knows what to do with who is willing to hang out on gross whaling ships for half a decade rather than pursue the more respectable maritime profession because he wants what he wants on his own terms and no one else’s
happy walton expedition day to all who celebrate! ⚓️
i am not immune to blasting my favourite characters with the neurodivergent beam — i think there is something very comforting about a character from a book written long before these things were understood (at least with the vocabulary we have today) articulating things about themselves that you can see something of yourself in
with that in mind, let me take you on a journey where i explain in far more detail than probably necessary
Why Captain Robert Walton from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus (1818) has ADHD (in my non-professional neurodivergent opinion)!
i’ll be going through some common ADHD symptoms and presenting evidence from the text to demonstrate how Walton, in his own representation of himself, can be interpreted as displaying these traits
this got Long so analysis under the cut!
— INATTENTIVENESS AND FOCUS
Walton has a strong and active imagination, and seems prone to excessive daydreaming and letting his mind wander, even becoming distracted by sensory input (the sublime beauty of nature, lol):
Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent and vivid.
He feels that he is set apart by his own manner of thinking, that his mind is in need of "regulation":
Now I am twenty-eight and am in reality more illiterate than many schoolboys of fifteen. It is true that I have thought more and that my daydreams are more extended and magnificent, but they want (as the painters call it) keeping; and I greatly need a friend who would have sense enough not to despise me as romantic, and affection enough for me to endeavour to regulate my mind.
The "keeping" that Shelley refers to is artistic terminology meaning
The maintenance of the proper relation between the representations of nearer and more distant objects in a picture; [...] the maintenance of harmony of composition. (X)
I would interpret Walton's meaning here to be that he understands his thoughts to be somewhat "all over the place" or lacking practicality; he is aware that he has an overzealous and ambitious personality, and requires a sense of harmony (ideally, in the form of an understanding friend) who will keep him focused.
Even Victor comments on Walton seeming to become impatient with him or lose focus during his own tangent:
Victor: But I forget that I am moralizing in the most interesting part of my tale, and your looks remind me to proceed.
(adhd bitches be like let me infodump my entire brain at you and tell you seven unrelated stories before getting to the point but the SECOND someone else goes off topic it's so over)
Walton's inattentiveness is best demonstrated by his lack of concentration on things like his education in favour of his interests when he was a boy:
My education was neglected, yet I was passionately fond of reading. These volumes were my study day and night[...]
and speaking of!
— HYPERFIXATIONS
I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven, for nothing contributes so much to tranquillise the mind as a steady purpose—a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.
^ me when i will go insane if i don't have my silly little Topics to obsess over. this guy gets it
Walton is clearly influenced heavily by his fixations; polar exploration and his "passionate enthusiasm for the dangerous mysteries of ocean" are lifelong special interests for him. He refers to his voyage as "the favourite dream of my early years", and also developed a love for poetry from a young age:
[...] for the first fourteen years of my life I ran wild on a common and read nothing but our Uncle Thomas’ books of voyages. At that age I became acquainted with the celebrated poets of our own country;
When he is forbidden for pursuing a seafaring life by his father, and in doing so prevented from indulging his main interests, Walton becomes fixated solely on literature, attempting to become a poet himself:
These visions faded when I perused, for the first time, those poets whose effusions entranced my soul and lifted it to heaven. I also became a poet and for one year lived in a paradise of my own creation; I imagined that I also might obtain a niche in the temple where the names of Homer and Shakespeare are consecrated.
Interestingly, when he fails to achieve his literary goal, his attention seemingly switches seamlessly back to his previous interests when he is finally given the opportunity to pursue them - jumping between hyperfixations in search of dopamine is often experienced by many with ADHD:
You are well acquainted with my failure and how heavily I bore the disappointment. But just at that time I inherited the fortune of my cousin, and my thoughts were turned into the channel of their earlier bent.
Walton claims that he is “practically industrious—painstaking, a workman to execute with perseverance and labour” but this mostly seems applicable when he can hyperfocus on tasks that are stimulating to him and related to his interests - for example, when he prepares for his voyage while working on whaling ships:
I often worked harder than the common sailors during the day and devoted my nights to the study of mathematics, the theory of medicine, and those branches of physical science from which a naval adventurer might derive the greatest practical advantage.
— HYPERACTIVITY, IMPULSIVITY AND RESTLESSNESS
i mean. i think most people would consider sailing off to explore as-yet unknown and extremely dangerous parts of the world completely of your own volition impulsive no matter how long you've been planning to do it
Even so, Walton seems to display a reduced sense of danger even upon "the commencement of an enterprise which you [Margaret] have regarded with such evil forebodings":
These are my enticements, and they are sufficient to conquer all fear of danger or death and to induce me to commence this laborious voyage with the joy a child feels when he embarks in a little boat, with his holiday mates, on an expedition of discovery up his native river.
Walton's hyperactivity can be seen in his innate restlessness and never wanting to feel “settled” or too comfortable:
My life might have been passed in ease and luxury, but I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path.
His wanderlust drives him forward, literally physically sending him to places very few have ever been:
[...] there is a love for the marvellous, a belief in the marvellous, 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.
To me, this line indicates that Walton has an awareness of his own overwhelming eagerness (and tbh this is also how I would describe what my own ADHD feels like sometimes):
I am too ardent in execution and too impatient of difficulties.
Walton also seems prone to excessive talking and infodumping, demonstrated even by the act of sending his sister such long and detailed letters in the first place. He is a grade A yapper and that is why we even have the story in the first place!
My favourite evidence of this is when Walton is so taken by the romantic story of his ship's master that he derails his entire letter to his sister to tell her about it, saying:
This, briefly, is his story.
Reader: the story was not brief.
My swelling heart involuntarily pours itself out thus.
you don't say!
— POOR PLANNING AND PRIORITISATION
Despite committing himself to his voyage for six years and having thought of it for much longer, Walton doesn't seem to have uh. much of an actual concrete plan:
I do not intend to sail until the month of June; and when shall I return? Ah, dear sister, how can I answer this question? If I succeed, many, many months, perhaps years, will pass before you and I may meet. If I fail, you will see me again soon, or never.
In relation to this, let me just leave this extract from Jessica Richard's article '“A paradise of my own creation”: Frankenstein and the improbable romance of polar exploration' here:
Shelley subtly indicates Walton’s incompetence as an expedition leader (despite his extensive reading and apprenticeships on Greenland whaling vessels) when she has him begin his journey on a rather late date, July 7th. Whether Walton is simply a poor planner, or, as Frankenstein himself fears, he “share[s] my madness,” a departure date so late in the season all but dooms his enterprise to failure from the outset. (p. 299)
ouch!
He seems to have little awareness of this aspect of his personality; he assures his sister that:
I shall do nothing rashly: you know me sufficiently to confide in my prudence and considerateness whenever the safety of others is committed to my care.
Yet to Victor, he describes:
how gladly I would sacrifice my fortune, my existence, my every hope, to the furtherance of my enterprise. One man’s life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought[...]
Not only does he neglect his duties as captain to care for Victor, even while his ship is imperilled by pack ice…
Thus has a week passed away, while I have listened to the strangest tale that ever imagination formed. My thoughts and every feeling of my soul have been drunk up by the interest for my guest which this tale and his own elevated and gentle manners have created.
… he is highly averse to abandoning his voyage even when his crew threatens mutiny:
We were immured in ice and should probably never escape, but they feared that if, as was possible, the ice should dissipate and a free passage be opened, I should be rash enough to continue my voyage and lead them into fresh dangers, after they might happily have surmounted this. They insisted, therefore, that I should engage with a solemn promise that if the vessel should be freed I would instantly direct my course southwards. This speech troubled me. I had not despaired, nor had I yet conceived the idea of returning if set free.
oh robert........
— EMOTIONAL DYSREGULATION AND SOCIAL DIFFICULTIES
This seems to be a persistent issue for Walton; he continually refers to the fluctuation of his own emotions and his inability to regulate them on his own:
My courage and my resolution is firm; but my hopes fluctuate, and my spirits are often depressed.
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 endeavour to sustain me in dejection.
He is deeply desirous of understanding and community with others, but is left feeling lonely and like an outsider, having difficulty connecting with most people including the men he sails with:
A youth passed in solitude, my best years spent under your gentle and feminine fosterage, has so refined the groundwork of my character that I cannot overcome an intense distaste to the usual brutality exercised on board ship:
Walton implies that he is insecure of aspects of his personality, and is in need of external validation and someone to “sympathise with and love” him:
How would such a friend repair the faults of your poor brother!
Lastly, this line appears in the 1831 version of the novel only but it is one that, for me, ties together a lot of the book's themes especially with regard to neurodiversity and is generally one of the most affecting for me personally for that reason:
There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand.
me too, buddy. me too
aaaaaaaand that's all(!) i have to say for now
most of this is really just based on my own experiences and traits (am i projecting? absolutely. but am i correct? also yes) and just my own interpretation and i’m sure i’ve left out SO much but i had fun putting my hyperfix spinterest hat on and hopefully it was interesting to read! let me know your thoughts!
My affection for my dearest Captain Robert Walton increases every day
behold: the doomed unrequited waltonstein manifesto courtesy of twitter user ustfile
walton is a stronger man than me because if i found the man who was the culmination of my lifelong dreams of true connection and everything i could possibly want in a friend, who talked to me about my interests at length and encouraged me and told me i would be successful in my endeavors, who wept for me after i confided my deepest desires and ambitions to him, who used the language of my heart, who sympathized with and loved me, and who told me all of his greatest flaws and mistakes and his harrowing several-hundred-pages long life story including the murders of his entire family, upon which i treated him with nothing but understanding and kindness and would do anything to return him to happiness and shoulder his woes, all while tenderly nursing back him from the brink of death while expecting nothing in return, even despite my growing concerns of a mutiny going on, and after all this he told me "I thank you, Walton [...] but think you that any can replace those who are gone? Can any man be to me as Clerval was?" i would just walk off the boat
What do you think of Robert Walton? I love that silly sailor very dearly and in one of your post you said that he was a little like Percy Shelley and I'm really curious to know why that is :]
i can't believe i've never shared my waltonthoughts before!!! in short
to be honest for a pretty large majority of my frankenstein fandom time i've been fairly apathetic about walton? (sorry robin 😞) i felt really really bad because i couldn't quite pinpoint why; he's an intriguing character with some really interesting stuff going on, his narration is charming and incredibly complex but i just i don't know. he didn't arouse my curiosity and desire to analyze like the other characters did (i admit my frankenstein rereads i kinda. skip the letters at the beginning. i know i am so sorry). it might be that he's quite far removed from the themes in frankenstein that really intrigue me like mental illness, neurodivergency, and generational trauma so nothing abt him stuck out to me
but!!! i am no longer apathetic about him! i thought it would feel like a chore to go through his letters with a fine toothed comb but walton represents what i think is a really underrepresented dichotomy: he's very industrious and self-efficacious, kinda like one of those self made millionaire crypto bros, with a privileged station and promising, comfortable future, but he has this wanderlust for life and beauty and romance that he cant really reconcile with his and it causes him a lot of distress and loneliness. when he meets victor he thinks he finds someone that can satisfy this longing for the romantic and sublime, someone attractive, intelligent, engaging, and ostensibly an avatar of the tragic romantic figure - walton thinks that this is the only proxy by which he can be understood and further understand himself, the only adequate vessel for this longing, which is probably why he attaches onto victor so obsessively. victor is tragic, beautiful, pitiful, complex, fallen from grace, and because of his idealism and thirst for a romantic story walton thinks he can save them both. especially because they knew each other for a relatively short period of time, i don't know to what extent walton loves victor or just loves the narrative of loving victor. in the idiot by dostoevsky prince myshkin says of natasya filippovna "i love her not with love, but with pity" and i think that might be what's going on with walton and victor. i need to spend more time thinking about that though
on the subject of him being like percy the major similarity i noticed is that walton, being an orphan, was raised by his older sister, and ive seen some people attribute his emotional and "effeminate" nature to his being raised under her "gentle and feminine fosterage"; similarly, percy shelley was very close to his mother and sisters in his youth, and ive seen a couple scholars attribute his sentimentality of character and feminist-adjacent ideas (like free love) to his being close to female figures in his childhood and young adulthood. probably a stretch but i just think it's kinda interesting. the two also share some other similarities like being poets in profession (or at least trying to be 😭) and veneration for nature
i think i had more to say but my brain power is depleted 😭 im so so so sorry it took me so long to get around to this ask!!! i had to do a little rereading and critical thinking which is yucky
this is what i was doing in 2022. frankenstein coffee shop AU but the creature doesnt exist its just clervalstein both swooning over the marine biology student (whose minoring in poetry) together. peak nonsense
No because the fact that Victor’s death didn’t fuel Robert’s anger. Like in his letter before he is so ashamed and frustrated and just furious but then he writes of Victor’s death, starting with “It has passed”. And like it’s super easy to say that Robert isn’t as emotional as Victor but really it’s their grief manifesting in different ways. Victor’s grief only strengthened his anger, and is what ultimately led to his demise. Robert can’t afford to have that happen. His grief numbs the anger. How can his feelings burn so bright when he lost one he had come to love so dearly? While Victor’s grief made him drunk with rage, Robert’s sobered him.
ok but walton if you look at the letters in the beginning, while i wouldnt go so far as to say he's a neglected child (we dont get nearly enough insight into his background to make those kind of assumptions) his parents were definitely, at the very least, not very present in walton's life or influential to him growing up. from my memory his mother is literally never mentioned, and the sole mentions of his father are fleeting. simply: 1) he didnt support waltons childhood dreams and interests in sailing and expeditions/discovery 2) he died, leaving walton an orphan to be raised by his older sister margaret 3) his fathers literal dying wish was for walton to never be a mariner. so while i am in no way suggesting his childhood was near as bad as the creature's, or even victor's, i think its incorrect to suggest that walton was completely blind and ignorant to neglect and parental conflict
"victor's creature would kinda be justified in not feeling bad" but he DID feel bad and therein, to me, is where his fault lies. i feel as if the creature would have felt no empathy, no care at all for victor or those lives he was taking, then i would actually blame him for his actions less -- because what creature did was murder innocent people, and destroy victors life, all while understanding and FEELING that it was bad. he did it anyways, while actively going against his own morality
creature "doesnt really like humans and kills them" is incorrect, his reason for killing them was NEVER because he didnt like them, its because he chose to murder for revenge while simultaneously wishing he could be part of the humanity he was destroying, which is why he was so distraught and upset when he was ostracized and met with their fear and hatred every time. because he LIKED THEM, he in his sort of parasocial way LOVED them and wanted to be loved and accepted by them
and walton sees this! which is what his whole speech and their interaction at the end is about! he sees the creatures humanity, he knows creatures life stories and feels for his misfortunes and is moved by his words and expressions of sadness, and even sympathizes with him in a way literally no one else in the book does, yet he also recognizes that creature actively chose to turn away from his innate humanity and goodness and consciously choose violence and revenge instead, while knowing and feeling what he was doing was wrong, and That is why walton condemns creature
"do you think he had enough for a conscience for morality when he was neglected by his own fucking creator???" this line is just funny to me. Because thats. Thats the point of the whole book. That he had a conscience for morality despite his horrific situation
im not going to get into the whole victor-abandoned-creature and the bride-situation because ive talked about it a Lot in the past and this post is already too long. sorry for dumping this all on you months after you made this post its all for the sake of literary analysis and walton is my babygirl i had to jump to his defense 🙏 🙏
walton = big dumb stupid head
it is so weird to me that despite hearing the same tale from victor that we have, when walton hears of victor's creature wailing over victor's death he's basically like:
"erm actually maybe if you listened to your concisnece nothing would have happened l + ratio + bozo!!"
like c'monnNn walton,, do you think he had enough for a conscience for morality when he was neglected by his own fucking creator??? and even then tbh victor's creature would kinda be justified in not feeling bad since again victor ran immediately and has been very against giving his creation a second chance, permanently at least with his bride and all.
and its like gee maybe the guy who lived on his own forever and who humans treated HORRIBLY doesn't really like humans and kills them? :0 woaaa walton crazy shit right there. Idk i just-like i like victor and all but c'mon man you don't neglect ur kid but if u do don't be surprised at the consequences and walton, walton just shut the fuck up
i cannot believe the common consensus around here is that walton is boring and less deserving of interest than the other narrators when in his literal introduction hes like. im a daydreamer and hopeless romantic. im an orphan. i love my sister. i went against my fathers dying wishes and pursued life as a seafarer. im self-educated. im illiterate. im a failed poet. im feminine and proud. im into pop culture. i bitterly feel the want of a (boy)friend. im gay.
or, how robert walton did not become the ancient mariner, but met him in victor frankenstein, and became the wedding-guest instead.
I read this book in eglish class .. franking stein
anyway like. walton in the beginning says he dislikes the typical masculine crassness and brutality associated with sailors, because he was raised under the "feminine fosterage" of margaret, and then goes on for pages about how he wants a "friend whose eyes reply to his" or whatever, and that he found something close to this in his lieutenant specifically because his lieutenant has traditionally feminine virtues (dont remember exactly but it was gentleness, kind-heartedness, etc) and then this friend that hes been waiting for all along turns out to be victor. all this to say victor and walton are t4t
this is what waltonstein is to me
robert walton laid down in his bed and wrote every letter gushing about victor to margaret in this pose
actually one of the things that continues to gut me the most about frankenstein is victor constantly asserting that he isnt crazy, that he is not a madman - he literally disrupts the flow of the narrative to do so, in his desperate attempts to be heard - and then he continues to recount a tale where he is constantly plagued by doubt and shame and guilt to the extent that does not tell anyone for fear of not being believed, or being thought of differently. and then these fears are only confirmed and re-affirmed when he attempts to reach out to anyone, and they do exactly that: during his feverish rambles henry believes it was due to his illness, he is imprisoned on the coast of ireland and kept there when his tale sounds like a confession, he is told by his father not to speak of it any longer, when he reaches out for help after elizabeth’s death the magistrate dismisses him. only one person ever sits down and suspends their disbelief and listens to him. robert walton, through the power of gay love—
tfw u rly want this dying guy you found whimpering on a floe of ice but one can ever be to him as clerval was, because even when the affections are not strongly moved by any superior excellence, the companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain (rolling eyes emoji)
imagine: picture of henry and walton staring at each other intensely. captioned “team jacob vs team edward”
soft jazz music plays as the love of walton’s life enters on-stage, the world goes all pink and slo-mo and dreamy. record scratch, pans to victor frankenstein coughing up a hairball
straight friend groups: (brunette girl) (frat boy) (“the funny one”) (kyle) (blonde girl)
gay friend groups: (The Modern Prometheus) (The 8-Foot Homunculus) (The Beautiful Italian Orphan) (The Poet Boyfriend) (The Falsely Accused) (The Gay Sailor) (Th
we as people should be more like robert walton and henry clerval (hopelessly in love with victor frankenstein)
what if you were willing to do anything to achieve your ambition of making a geographical and scientific discovery to benefit all of mankind via being the first to find the northern passage and get to the north pole but i said "Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow" (and we were both boys)