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# Arctic Light
- URL: https://www.rebindclassics.com/frankenstein-arctic-light/
- Published: 2026-01-02T00:01:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:28:19.000Z
- Description: Gordon reads Walton's letters as the frame that filters the whole novel, and drops a hint: watch the initials of his sister, Margaret Walton Saville.
- Author: Andrew Wessels
- Tags: Charlotte Gordon on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, #video

Charlotte Gordon takes up the question most first-time readers of Mary Shelley's *Frankenstein* have at this point: who is Robert Walton, and why does the novel open with his letters to his sister? She admits the letters mystified her once and says they're now among her favorite pages, because they hold secrets. She gives one away in part: pay attention to the initials of Margaret Walton Saville, MWS, a woman whose letters we never read.

The point she presses is that Walton is the frame. Everything in the novel comes to us through him, he promises his sister an accurate record, and Gordon asks whether we can trust that. She also sets up the doubles: a dreamer, poet and Arctic explorer, and then a half-dead stranger on a sledge who shares his sensibilities and his fatal ambition. The film ends where the story inside the story begins.

## Transcript

So now that you've finished these first pages, perhaps you're wondering why the novel begins with Robert Walton's letters to his sister. I mean, who's Robert Walton? When I first read these letters, I was mystified, but now they're among my favorite pages. I think that's because there are so many secrets. Secrets that I'm happy to share with you, but not yet.

I'll give you one hint though. Pay attention to the initials of Walton's sister, Margaret Walton Saville, MWS. See if you can figure out why her name matters and what her message to her brother is. We don't get her actual letters. She remains off stage, but Walton refers to her words, and so we get to know her point of view, albeit filtered through his.

In fact, everything that happens in this novel is filtered through Walton. His letters serve as a frame to the story as they also end the novel. A hint that Walton's own story is in many ways just as important as the Frankenstein story. He's the one who records Frankenstein's words, and although he tells his sister he will do this as accurately as possible, does he?

We'll never know. In the first three letters, we discovered that Walton's a dreamer, a poet, and an Arctic explorer. A combination that might seem odd to us, but not to Mary Shelley. She's a Romantic. And to Romantics, who else would dream of searching for the North Pole, if not a poet? And what after all is a poet, if not an explorer?

Walton's sister is worried about her brother. Walton tells her he's safe, but he's not that reassuring. The vessel gets stuck in the fog, and an enormous figure, too tall to be human, and yet, what else could it be, passes by on the horizon, driving a dog sled. There's icebergs. If I were his sister, I'd still be worried, but Walton doesn't care about physical danger. What matters to him is that he's lonely.

Then he makes a new friend: a sledge bumps up against the ship and inside is a man close to death. When the stranger starts to talk, Walton is delighted. This refined gentleman shares his sensibilities. We don't learn the name of this stranger, but we know who it is. Or if we don't, it will soon be revealed. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that this is Victor Frankenstein.

Walton tells Margaret how deeply Victor feels the beauties of nature, just like Walton, and Victor feels despair just like Walton. And so we're introduced to an important theme in the novel, the theme of doubles. In many ways, Walton and Victor are mirror images. Victor says that he's ended up in the Arctic because he was driven by fatal ambition. He doesn't reveal the details, but the comparison is clear.

Just like Victor, Walton is driven by ambition. He too wants to accomplish the impossible, but now it is time to get into the meat of the story. In this next section, Walton tells us what Frankenstein told him. And so the story inside the story begins, at least the first story within a story.