what were my duties with regard to this destroyer
"Duty" has been a charged concept throughout Frankenstein, invoked in
regard to family affairs, social obligations, legal contracts, uses of
knowledge -- even, in Victor's rationale for suspending his second creation,
the human race. This occasion is different from all the rest, involving the
question of what is the moral duty of a human to another sentient but
alien being. This assertion of the priority of moral obligation requires
willed self-abnegation on Walton's part. No other figure in the novel,
certainly not Victor Frankenstin, has ever assumed that the Creature was
owed anything.
