Frankenstein by Mary Shelley ~ July Book Club Online

[PatH]

The Book Club Online is  the oldest  book club on the Internet, begun in 1996, open to everyone.  We offer cordial discussions of one book a month,  24/7 and  enjoy the company of readers from all over the world.  Everyone is welcome to join in.

"Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed."

Frankenstein  by Mary Shelley Frankenstein is a story many of us think we know but actually don't. Very few films have followed the novel very closely. The monster of the book is intelligent and soft-spoken. The themes are timeless and full of conflict. Join us as we read this fantastic story, created by 19-year old Mary Shelley, and share your thoughts about its characters and meanings. Reading Schedule (dated version of book--1818 or 1831-- precedes chapter breakdown): July 1-6:  (1818) Vol I, Letters, Chapters 1-5                (1831) Letters, Chapters 1-6 Last sentence: "My own spirits were high, and I bounded along with feelings of unbridled joy and hilarity." July 7-12:  (1818) Vol I, Ch 6-7, Vol II, Ch 1-4                  (1831) Ch 7-12 Last sentence: "......and the future gilded by bright rays of hope and anticipation of joy." July 13-18:  (1818) Vol II, Ch 5-9, Vol III, Ch 1-2                  (1831) Ch 13-19 Last sentence: "..... forebodings of evil that made my heart sicken in my bosom." July 19-24:  (1818) Vol III Ch 3-7, Letters                  (1831) Ch 20-24, Letters July 26-31:  Thoughts on anything in the book and film versions

Previous discussion questions and links

Questions for July 26-31:

Thoughts on anything in the book and film versions.

Discussion Leaders: PatH and marcie

 

The full text is available online at literature.org and Read Print and Project Gutenberg -
Online version of original 1818 Edition

[marcie]

It sounds like you had a Frankensteinesque night, Pat, to get you in the mood for the end of the book. :-)

[JoanK]

PatH and I went to a beautiful spot on the beach today, so I'm feeling all mellow, and not in a Frankensteinian mood. But the book had what was probanly the only ending it could have had.

It seems to me that if F knew enough to make a woman, he would have known enough to make one that couldn't have children. But then something else would have gone wrong, and the creature wpuld have been back, demanding something else.

[marcie]

JoanK, how nice that you and Pat had a good beach day. Good point about making the woman creature sterile. I didn't think of that.



SPOILER ALERT ABOUT THE ENDING



Do you think that the creature went through with his plan to immolate himself at the end?

[PatH]

I'm a little uncertain where everyone is in the book.  I have some things I really want to chew over, but some are easier to discuss when we've read it all.  Have most of you finished?

[PatH]

One thing I wonder: when Victor destroys the female he is making, the creature makes a threat.  Why is Victor so certain he knows what the creature intends, and so blind to any other possibility?

[PatH]

Another thing I wonder: what is Elizabeth really like?  She isn't very fully drawn, but we get some clues, especially in her letter to Victor when he is on the way back to Geneva.  Does she fit in with the ideas Mary Shelly must have had of women and their role?

[Babi]

 Victor still does not see where his guilt lies.  “I felt as if I had committed some great crime, the consciousness of which haunted me.  I was guiltless, but I had indeed drawn down a horrible curse upon my head, as mortal as that of crime.”
    He persists in not recognizing that his creation’s rage and malignancy are due to being abandoned, feared and hated.   He persuades himself that keeping his promise could endanger all of humankind.  He has found a good excuse for not doing what he doesn’t want to do. (A
common enough failing among us humans.)
   My eyebrows elevate when F. says things  like: “I would have seized him, but he eluded me.” Just what was he going to do to this 8-ft giant if he had ‘seized’ him?



 

[PatH]

  My eyebrows elevate when F. says things  like: “I would have seized him, but he eluded me.” Just what was he going to do to this 8-ft giant if he had ‘seized’ him?

What, indeed, Babi!  Victor makes several useless gestures like that.  Somewhere else he makes a move as if to wresltle with the creature, but doesn't reach him.  Later, he shoots at the creature at fairly close range, but misses, and the creature"eludes" him again.

[JoanK]

Yes, Victor is fairly helpless and not too bright. I can't imagine him actually effectively stopping the creature -- he'd be too busy bemoaning something or other. (You can see, a littleof the romantic hero goes a long way with me).

"Do you see parallels between Walton and Frankenstein? How are they alike and different?"

That's an interesting question. I hadn't thought of that. Of course, Walton is also one who is pushing human knowledge beyond the limits. How does he escape the same fate as Victor?

[JoanP]

Playing catch-up today - but last night I did finish the book  so not too far behind.  I just got finished reading your posts - there's so much here!  

My first question - JoanK - did you anticipate the ending?  When you wrote "The book had what was probably the only ending it could have had,"  I had to stop and think what ending I was expecting.  I thought there were quite a few unanticipated twists that kept me turning the pages.  Honestly, I had no idea how it was going to play out.

Since the story began on Walton's boat with Victor telling him his story, I did expect we were going to return to the boat at the end.

With so much to talk about, I'm not going to go to the very end - but I do need to comment on what Babi wrote -
"Victor still does not see where his guilt lies."  I felt that too, Babi - he says on more than one occasion that he "does not find his past conduct blameable."  I copied that from the book.  He seems to be saying that his duty was to "assure the creature's happiness and well-being" - but claims he did the right thing by denying him a companion.  That seems to be his excuse for not taking responsibility for the creature in the first place.

I found the two new friends, Walton and Frankenstein remarkably similar, but with a slight difference.  

Victor is willing to give his life rather than give up his goal...to destroy his creation.  Walton is willing to face great danger pursuing his glorious goal, but is unwilling to sacrifice the lives of his crew to go ahead with his  quest once the ice clears before him.  Has Victor learned anything from his own experiment, for which he sacrificed so many lives?  Listen to him try to talk Walton and his men into facing perils, danger, even if it means death to accomplish Walton's dream.  Walton is ashamed to turn around and return to England without accomplishing his goal.  Victor made him feel that way.  Victory after all, needs Walton to go after the creature, knowing that he himself is dying without accomplishing his own goal.
Walton put his men first.  I think he is the better man.  I don't see Victor as having learned anything.

I'm going to read over these last chapters to see if Victor has said or done anything to indicate that he owns up to his wrong-doing.

Maybe Marcie's right - maybe we should be reading the story to be horrified, since this is what Mary Shelley intended.  That seems to be the focus of all the movies that are based on the book.  (Marcie, I loved the 1910 film - an interesting ending, I'll agree!)  Perhaps  MS wrote the first draft as a short story in order to horrify her companions, but when lengthening it into the novel, I think that she went so far beyond a horror story, it is impossible not to consider the psychological and moral implications.



 

[marcie]

You all are bringing up such good points.

JoanP, you say: "Perhaps  MS wrote the first draft as a short story in order to horrify her companions, but when lengthening it into the novel, I think that she went so far beyond a horror story, it is impossible not to consider the psychological and moral implications." You make a wonderful point here. Mary Shelley certainly did include more than necessary for a pure horror story. She includes references to several classic works of literature. She must want us to be aware of the comparisons.

PatH, you bring up an interesting question about Elizabeth. I wonder what she would have been like if Victor had abandoned his original work of creating the monster when he felt that the work was getting out of control and married her and let her live a normal life. She is portrayed originally as full of life and a mother figure to the younger children when Frankenstein's mother dies. She "contemplated with a serious and satisfied spirit the magnificent appearance of things." She aided the poor, respected all classes of people and tried to assist Justine Moritz, even to the point of testifying for her in court when everyone thought Justine was a murderer. She seems like she could have been a woman active in society.

When Victor takes off several times, for so long, Elizabeth contents herself with writing to him to keep him connected to the family and, otherwise, expresses her love in silent waiting. She even writes to him to say that if he has found someone else, he should feel free to tell her and break the understanding they had of being married. She puts her love for him above her own wants.

Babi and JoanK, yes Frankenstein does make feeble attempts to stop his creation. Rather than make rational plans, he emotionally gets angry at the creature and strikes out ineffectually. He seems of two minds regarding his creation and isn't able to act. He somewhat reminds me of Hamlet's "To be or not to be...."

[Babi]

 I am assuming Frankenstein's story will be an object lesson for Walton.
It would be nice if it would do that much good at least. (Do I sound a bit
catty? Sorry.)

  I can’t help wondering if F’s creation carried some of his own DNA.  The creature thinks of himself as a  ‘fallen angel” and like F., declares that “No guilt, no mischief, no malignity, no misery can be found comparable to mine.”  I had to stop and check back to be sure which one of them was speaking those words.

[JoanP]

Easy to confuse which one is the "fallen angel,"  isn't it, Babi?  I think in the context you quote, the creature is referring to himself as the fallen angel, but in other instances, it well describes Victor - and his sin of Pride. 

"I can’t help wondering if F’s creation carried some of his own DNA"

 Now Babi, that's a thought!  You've got me thinking back to the scene where Frankenstein is working on the female creature - and his fear that she will bring forth an entire race of devils - "a curse on everlasting generations."  

And now we are considering whether Frank's DNA is part of the life-giving force that he imparts to his creatures?   I have a note in front of me from those pages - "in all probability she would be a thinking and reasoning animal."  But when he destroyed "her"  he felt he had left a "human being"  on the floor.  So what are these creatures of his - animals who look like humans?  What makes them humans?  They think, they reason...  Is it okay to kill them?  

I was struck by the creations comment - "You are my creator, but I am your Master."  Why?  Because he's bigger and stronger?  How did you take that?

[marcie]

LOL, Babi. The "woe is me" comparisons of Frankenstein and his creation can be funny but it does seem that they are very similar. I read somewhere the idea that Shelley was creating a Jekyll-Hyde personalities or two aspects of one individual--a doppelganger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppelganger) in the persons of Frankenstein and his creature.

For more on that interpretation see the 10 minute 1910 silent film adaptation of Frankenstein at http://www.trailerspy.com/trailer/8588/Thomas-Edisons-1910-Frankenstein-Movie-Restored.

[marcie]

JoanP, those are intriguing questions, about what makes us human. Frankenstein hadn't finished creating the female creature...hadn't put the secret life force in the body parts that he was putting together. She wasn't yet alive, so I would say that he hadn't actually killed her. He does seem to want to destroy his male creation at the end, in revenge for his killing his family and friend... and supposedly to save others in the human race. Was "vigilante justice" acceptable in those days?

[JoanK]

"vigilante justice" seems to be becoming more acceptable in OUR days. There is a TV program, "Leverage" devoted to it.

[marcie]

JoanK, I've recently begun to watch episodes of "Leverage" because I like the actor Timothy Hutton. It seems like fun, light entertainment. It reminds me of a mixture of Robin Hood and Mission Impossible.

JoanP, when the creation says "You are my creator but I am your master" I took that as Mary Shelley showing that the tables were turned and now the power over life and death was in the hands of the creation. He was trying to threaten his creator to obey his wishes about a female companion. Everything that Frankenstein did after he created the creature was because of his fear of/revenge against his creation.

[Babi]

  Help! There are references here that elude me.  Who is this Felix who ‘drove his friend from the door with contumely.’    And what is the reference to the ‘rustic who sought to destroy the saviour of his child”?
  These are on pg. 257 in my edition.  I haven't a clue.

[JoanP]

Babi, that line stopped me too - even had to look up "contumely"  - rudeness or contempt...

You remember Felix, the rustic ...with the blind father and sister Agatha - who wasn't really a rustic?  He was in love with Safie?  The creature spied on this family for quite a while - learned to read and write from watching them.  Even helped them gather wood and do chores for them at night.  He considered them to be  his friends - wanted to be accepted and loved by them.  The blind father seemed to accept him - but when Felix saw him with his father,  he beat him - and "drove him from his door with contumely."  

But I can't figure out "the rustic who tried to destroy the saviour of his child."  Whose child?

[marcie]

JoanP and Babi, I think that the "the rustic who tried to destroy the saviour of his child" has to do with the scene early on when the creature tries to save a drowning child and the father thinks that the creature is harming the child and shoots  him with a hunting gun, wounding the creature's... arm? I can't recall where he got shot.

[PatH]

I think it was the shoulder.

[PatH]

That 10 minute silent movie is amusing.  "Frankenstein" with a happy ending!  The frame: "Instead of a perfect being, the evil in Frankenstein's mind creates a monster."  fits in with your doppelganger suggestion very well, Marcie.

[PatH]

As several of you have pointed out, Walton and Victor are sort of doppelganger in a different way.  (Your doppelganger doesn't have to be your wicked side.)  Walton feels Victor is the friend he always wanted, the sympathetic soul so much like himself, and a truly admirable person.  Bits from Walton's August 26 letter:

What a glorious creature he must have been in the days of his prosperity, when he is thus noble and godlike in his ruin!

Must I then lose this admirable being?  I have longed for a friend....but I ..have gaained him only to know his value and lose him.

What a lofty notion of Victor's character!  Does it fit the rest of the book, or our notions of him?

[JoanK]

"What a lofty notion of Victor's character!  Does it fit the rest of the book, or our notions of him?"

No, it doesn't. Of course Victor must have been an unusual person to have both the ambition that he had (which is presumably what Walton relates to) and the genius to carry it out. But that side of him is not developed in the book: we see him as cowering and ineffectual after the creature comes to life.

Distroying the woman creature was an act of heroism, since Victor knows it will mean his own doom, but somehow that heroism doesn't come through to us. Perhdaps it is the culture difference, or Shelley's writing.

[marcie]

PatH and JoanK, I think that you raise very important points. What did Mary Shelley intend us to think of the character of Victor Frankenstein? I don't think he is portrayed as perfectly good and without fault nor is he portrayed as "evil." Are we supposed to be sympathetic with him or not?

Not only does Walton sing his praises, even his creation, whom Frankenstein created and abandoned, characterizes him the following way right after Frankenstein dies: "I have devoted my creator, the select specimen of all that is worthy of love and admiration among men, to misery..."

I'm not sure if I wholeheartedly agree with Harold Bloom's interpretation of Frankenstein and his creation (in the Afterword to a Signet Classics publication of Frankenstein) but it is persuasive:

"The monster is at once more intellectual and more emotional than his maker; indeed he excels Frankenstein as much (and in the same ways) as Milton's Adam excels Milton's God in Paradise Lost. The greatest paradox, and most astonishing achievement, of Mary Shelley's novel is that the monster is more human than his creator. This nameless being, as much a Modern Adam as his creator is a Modern Prometheus, is more lovable than his creator and more hateful, more to be pitied and more to be feared, and above all more  able to give the attentive reader that shock of added consciousness which compels a heightened realization of the self. For, like Blake's Spectre and Emanation, or Shelley's Alastor and Epipsyche, Frankenstein and his monster are the solipsistic and generous halves of the one self. Frankenstein is the mind and emotions turned in upon themselves, and his  creature is the mind and emotions turned imaginatively outward, seeking a greater humanization through a confrontation of other selves."

[marcie]

I found a description of the Romantic hero that seems to match Frankenstein to a great extent:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byronic_hero
The Byronic hero typically exhibits several of the following characteristics:
    * a strong sense of arrogance
    * high level of intelligence and perception
    * cunning and able to adapt
    * suffering from an unnamed crime
    * a troubled past
    * sophisticated and educated
    * self-critical and introspective
    * mysterious, magnetic and charismatic
    * struggling with integrity
    * power of seduction and sexual attraction
    * social and sexual dominance
    * emotional conflicts, bipolar tendencies, or moodiness[citation needed]
    * a distaste for social institutions and norms
    * being an exile, an outcast, or an outlaw
    * "dark" attributes not normally associated with a hero[citation needed]
    * disrespect of rank and privilege
    * jaded, world-weary
    * cynicism
    * self-destructive behaviour

[marcie]

Here is a review of the book by Percy Bysshe Shelley. It focuses on Frankenstein's creation as holding the moral of the story. http://www.english.upenn.edu/Projects/knarf/PShelley/frankrev.html

[Babi]

 Thanks, JOAN. I didn't remember the cottagers name was Felix. And MARCIE, I had forgotten that bit about the drowning child entirely. It is a pity, really, to see that this creation of F's was capable of being warm, caring person and to see him so violently rejected because of his frightening appearance.

 PATH, Mary Shelley certainly keeps trying to make a great and noble hero out of her Professor Frankenstein.  Even the creature that hates him is made to refer to him as “the select specimen of all that is worthy of love and admiration among men”.   I see that Marcie noted the same quote.
 No, sorry, I can't buy that. But he does clearly fit many of the descriptors that Marcie listed for the 'Romantic' hero.
 

[JoanP]

I had totally forgotten that the creature had saved the drowning child, too, Babi.  If you were to judge the creature from the start - I'll never forget the smile he gave to Victor at the moment of his "birth" - all he ever wanted was love and acceptance.  He has been judged wholly on his appearance, which  horrifies everyone, including the one who made him.  Don't you wonder what infirmity or whose appearance inspired Mary Shelley? 

Marcie, I really had to smile at some of the things Percy Shelley had to say about his wife's book - he seems to be questioning the source of her inspiration too...

"We debate with ourselves in wonder as we read it, what could have been the series of thoughts, what could have been the peculiar experiences that awakened them, which conducted in the author's mind, to the astonishing combination of motives and incidents and the startling catastrophe which compose this tale. There are perhaps some points of subordinate importance which prove that it is the Author's first attempt.  The interest gradually accumulates, and advances towards the conclusion with the accelerated rapidity of a rock rolled down a mountain. We are held breathless with suspense and sympathy, and the heaping up of incident on incident, and the working of passion out of passion..."

Since the beginning, I've been watching for Percy's input into his wife's novel.  I have to say, that as the suspense and passion grows, I'm seeing a more mature mind than an 18 year old girl - though I do see a young person's imagination at work.  Percy's review only confirms to me that he was more involved than he lets on - For example -

"The scene in the cabin of Walton's ship, the more than mortal enthusiasm and grandeur of the Being's speech over the dead body of his victim, is an exhibition of intellectual and imaginative power, which we think the reader will acknowledge has seldom been surpassed. "

Maybe I'm wrong - maybe these are comments made by a proud husband concerning his young wife's remarkable talent.

[PatH]

It's interesting that the review is phrased as though Percy didn't know the author or her intentions.

[PatH]

Victor may be an intellectual wonder and a Romantic Hero, but I still think he's a moral coward.  He's like a little child who has done something wrong and hides the evidence (puts the broken vase in the closet or whatever).  He can't bear the possibility of losing the respect of his family and friends if they find out what he has done.

He does finally tell the story to a magistrate, but only after everyone whose good opinion he needs is dead.  Yes, I know that now there is finally enough evidence to be convincing, but I still think he's a coward.

[PatH]

This is the windup period, in which we talk about anything we still want to say about any part of the book, Frankenstein movies, background material, anything.

Further attempts to figure out the Creature's character:
When Victor is trying to persuade Walton to kill the Creature, he says "He is eloquent and persuasive, and once his words had power even over my heart; but trust him not.  His soul is as hellish as his form, full of treachery and fiendlike malice."  Is this right?

[Babi]

 Well, after Victor destroys his hopes of a companion, I guess you could fairly say the creature was 'full of ....fiendlike malice'.  I  think the treachery could more fairly be attributed to Victor.
He has betrayed his creation in many ways. 
   Continuing with Walton’s narrative, (pg. 251  F. speaking.) ”In a fit of enthusiastic madness I created a rational creature, and was bound towards him, to assure, as far as was in my power, his happiness and well-being."  He knows this, yet he has never once made a sincere effort to
fulfill that obligation. He finds it easier to excuse himself by swooning and taking to his bed.
  Perhaps Mary Shelley unintentionally had another first in her book; the non-hero! 

[JoanP]

Babi, I'm going to agree with you - Walton has emerged as the hero, hasn't he?  "Non-hero" is a good description - Walton has done nothing really heroic - or has he?

Frankenstein did not return Walton's friendship - he was using Walton to accomplish his goal of destoying the creature. Even on his deathbed, Frankenstein expressed the hope that another scientist might successed where he had failed. He learned nothing and expressed no remorse.  Walton on the other hand was sorely tempted to follow the advice of his new "friend" - If he continued on his quest to explore futher than any man had gone, he would achieve glory.  Frankenstein used all his powers of persuasion on Walton's crew, but when they expressed fear to their captain, Walton decided not to go on.  

This would cost him everythng he ever hoped for  -  his friendship...and his chance for glory, but he made the decision to turn back.  Maybe he was a "hero" after all.

[HaroldArnold]

"You (Victor Frankenstein) are my creator, but I am your Master.”  I too noted this statement by the monster.  As a practical matter It is certainly a true description of the situation in the later chapter where it was uttered.  Earlier it had seemed to me that the idea of creating a female monster as consort for the monster seemed a possible pragmatic solution.  Let the two of them seek happiness the Brazilian jungle; let the Europeans live in monster free peace.  There are of course obvious consequences to the plan including the moral objection of dumping the problem on the Brazilians, and more seriously the spectra of a future super race of monster off spring rising to attack Europe.  These considerations must have been the reason for Frankenstein’s abandonment of his earlier agreement and his destruction of his work on the female monster.  As the plot approached its end the monster certainly had the upper hand; he was most certainly his creators master.

[HaroldArnold]

Modern literary critics including J. B. Priestly who I have mentioned in earlier seem inclined to express amazement over the fact that a 17 year old girl could have produced the imaginative first novel that “Frankenstein” certainly is.  They base their conclusion on the fact that Mary Shelly had been home educated by tutors during which her only outside contacts were social occasions in her father’s house and a limited number of family visitors.  Of course many of these were rather high powered intellectuals including Percy Shelley with who she eloped just a year before Frankenstein was published.

Shelley’s influence is certainly apparent, particularly in introductions and in contemporary commentaries.  I do not doubt that Shelley and other friends were factors in its publication, but I am not really too surprised by the idea of a high school girl writing an imaginative first novel.  In fact what age group would possibly be better equipped by imagination to write such a first novel than a 17 year old girl?  Older women and men might become better writers and have a much greater experience pool to draw on, but for sheer imagination (which is what Frankenstein is) authorship by a 17 year old girl should not be a surprise.  

[JoanK]

"This would cost him everythng he ever hoped for  -  his friendship...and his chance for glory, but he made the decision to turn back.  Maybe he was a "hero" after all."

Yes, if Walton and Frankenstein are echos of each other, this is the big difference between them. Walton turned back because he saw the danger he was creating for others (his crew). Frankenstein did not see that danger until it was too late. Is Shelley making a point here?

[marcie]

Harold, I agree with you about the imagination of the very imaginative young Mary Shelley. She seems ahead of her times in some of the ideas she wrote about. She says, in the Author's Introduction, that she grew up in the countryside of Scotland. "I wrote then but in a most commonplace style. It was beneath the trees of the grounds belonging to our house, or on the bleak sides of the woodless mountains near, that my true compositions, the airy flights of my imagination, were born and fostered.... After this my life became busier, and reality stood in place of fiction. My husband, however, was from the first very anxious that I should prove myself worthy of my parentage and enrol myself on the page of fame."

I wonder how much of the melodrama and how much background and "reasons" given for this or that is in Mary Shelley's story  because it stems from her own young imagination or because she thought her husband or others expected those kind of sentiments and writing.

[marcie]

I am reading all of your thoughts about Victor Frankenstein and his role as antihero or even as villain. I am ambivalent about  Frankenstein and I think that Mary Shelley may have been too.  We know that the Romantics valued individual freedom over societal restraints. Mary Shelly had read the works of her father William Godwin, including his popular novel, Things as They Are or The Adventures of Caleb Williams, "which tells the story of a servant who finds out a dark secret about Falkland, his aristocratic master, and is forced to flee because of his knowledge.... At the conclusion of the novel, when Caleb Williams finally confronts Falkland, the encounter fatally wounds the Lord, who immediately admits the justness of Williams' cause. Far from feeling release or happiness, Williams only sees the destruction of someone who remains for him a noble, if fallen person. Implicitly, Caleb Williams ratifies Godwin's assertion that society must be reformed in order for individual behaviour to be reformed...." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Godwin).

Romantics, including Percy Bysshe Shelley, very much admired the Fallen Angel, Lucifer in Milton's Paradise Lost, one of the three books from which Mary Shelley has Frankenstein's creation learning about humanity and civilization.

The noble, fallen person is admired, much as everyone (even the creature that Victor created) seems to admire Victor Frankenstein though they may think he was blinded (fatally blinded it turns out) to some of the realities of his creation.

Frankenstein's final words to Walton are "Farewell, Walton! Seek happiness in tranquility and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries. Yet why do I say this? I have myself been blasted in these hopes, yet another may succeed."  Shelley didn't end the dialog with the first sentence after Farewell. She added .."yet another may succeed."

My interpretation is that it may be that the fatal flaw was not in taking on the task of creation but in the careless execution. Frankenstein made the creature so big because it was faster to work with larger "parts" and he didn't work out the need to have the parts stretch with motion. He didn't think through how he would help the creature's intelligence and emotions to develop. If he had created a wonderful-looking being, would there have been the ensuing problems?

And regarding Walton, is it his decision to turn back, or does his crew make it impossible not to do so? His crew refuses to go on and threatens mutiny. Walton says, "Thus are my hopes blasted by cowardice and indecision; I come back ignorant and disappointed. It requires more philosophy than I possess to bear this injustice with patience." It seems like Walton does want to be an explorer and contribute to mankind through his explorations.