many of my unfortunate comrades have already found a grave
These deaths once more testify to the contingent and threatened nature of
human life in Frankenstein. The fact of such mortality is surely
what exacerbates the crew's sense of its peril and justifies its appeal to
the captain to cut short his expedition. Although Walton expresses no
guilt for the fate of these mariners under his command, one might wonder
at its lack. Certainly, it is an odd paradox that the novel can
concentrate with such intensity on the murderous consequences of the
antagonism of Victor Frankenstein and his Creature but pass by without
comment the revelation that Walton's enterprise in pursuit of knowledge
has resulted in apparently greater death than has their destructive
dynamic.
