[Music] Frankenstein begins and ends with an epistolary frame a series of letters from the Explorer Robert Walton to his sister Margaret Saville Walton Walton is a successful Englishman and the captain of a ship headed on a dangerous voyage to the North Pole he wants to make scientific discoveries and become a famous explorer in the first letter Walton describes the preparations leading up to the voyage and his desire to accomplish something great in the second letter Walton describes securing a ship and hiring sailors but more importantly his loneliness and need for friendship in the third letter
Walton writes that the ship is nearing the North Pole he and his crew have sailed through a storm but he assures her he is in no danger in the fourth letter Walton tells his sister his ship is stuck in a field of icebergs he and his crew saw a gigantic figure of a man travelling by dogsled the next morning they found another man of normal size also on a dogsled this second man was near to death but refused to enter the ship unless it was bound for the North Pole the man revealed that he was
chasing the gigantic figure Walton explains in the letter that he is thrilled to have a friend to talk to even though the man does not talk much and seems to be miserable Walton tells his sister that the stranger is going to tell his story the following day and has agreed to let Walton record it the connections to Paradise Lost continue into the letters for instance critics have noted that both st. Petersburg and Archangel the places where Walton prepares are biblical references these letters serve several purposes as a frame of narrative as a veneer of realism
and as a way to introduce Walton Walton is a character who will come to resemble Victor Frankenstein anyways given that the book is written during the Romantic period readers would likely find Walton to be an interesting character given his ambition and imagination lastly the letters introduced one of the novel's primary themes companionship Walton is bitterly lonely and even though Victor is reclusive Walton quickly takes to him
