Friendship In Frankenstein

The absence of a real friend can have a great effect on someone’s life. The desire for friendship is a major part of the plot in Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. Through her writing, Mary Shelley portrays that a man without a friend is lacking an important aspect of life. Victor has special bonds with many characters in the novel that he values very much. Victor uses his friends to keep him sane throughout the novel. Robert Walton was losing his motivation to achieve a life goal he had because he could not find a true friend. The characterization of Victor Frankenstein, the creature, and Walton demonstrates that friendship is more valuable than many other aspects of life. Victor demonstrates the importance of friends when he suffers from …show more content…
When writing the letters to his sister, Walton describes how lonely he feels on his voyage to the North Pole. He states in the letter, “I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me…but I bitterly feel the want of a friend” (Shelley 4). While in the midst of his travels, Walton began to feel very lonely even though he is surrounded by many crew members with him. At this moment of time, Walton has no contact with anyone who truly cares about his problems and wants someone there who can celebrate his success and achievements with him. It is not until Walton writes letter four and expresses that he has finally found the friend that he had been searching for (Shelley 11). The friend that Walton finds is Victor Frankenstein. Before Walton finds Victor, he was about ready to not continue on with his voyage. Finding Victor bought back his motivation and restored his hope. He begins to think of Victor as more of a brother rather than a friend. This again demonstrates that real friends can help in both bad and good times and those friends are valuable and deserve to be …show more content…
The creature learns to read, along with many other things to try and fit in with human society but that does not bring him success. He then resorts to bringing his issues to Victor and expressing that he has murdered William because he was angry at Victor for abandoning him and that all he wants is a companion of the opposite sex that will accept and value him (Shelley 125). This illustrates the values of friendship because the creature went to extreme measures just to show that he was angered because of his loneliness. The creature says it was his loneliness that made him savage. After Victor agrees to make the creature a companion, the creature goes on to say that he will not bother Victor’s family or friends, and will go live somewhere in isolation from humanity. This demonstrates that having a real friend can change someone’s view on life because the creature will discontinue its goal in life, which was to blend in with humanity, just to have a real