my first impulses
The repression of instinctive response continues as Walton, deeply
mindful of the solemn and reiterated injunction of Victor Frankenstein to
exact vengeance upon his Creature, hesitates before the presence of the
other being. In essence, he substitutes a reality for an abstraction,
his own actuality for the vicarious experience provided by Victor's
narrative. Implied in this act is the priority of individual
responsibility for independent judgment. That Walton is preoccupied by
his "impulses" in the plural may indicate how difficult, complex, and
responsive to particular circumstances such a judgment must be.
