In the novel “Frankenstein” there are three characters that pursue a “self-guided,
pleasure-seeking, undisciplined education” that is more geared toward “self-fulfillment than
social utility.” These characters are Robert Walton, Victor Frankenstein and the creature Victor
created. Robert Walton was self-educated for the first fourteen years of his life. He was
interested in exploring the seas even though his father was against the sea-faring life. He was
very fond of reading; Walton spent his time reading voyages in his Uncles library in hopes to one
day explore the seas. Walton’s lack of formal education causes him to feel a sense of inferiority.
He never learned beyond his native language like others. “I am twenty-eight and more illiterate
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Since the creature he created was born already an adult and abandoned by
Victor, he had no time to learn how to read and write he had to teach himself. Unlike Walton and
Victor the creature had neither family structure nor affection. The creature learned a lot of his
skills from observing and discovery. He took shelter in a barn next to some cottagers; he hid
from them but spied on them throughout his stay. Throughout his stay he learned the basic
concepts of love, friendship and companionship. The creature would listen to the family read,
“This reading had puzzled me extremely at first; but, by degrees, I discovered that he uttered
many of the same sounds when he read, as when he talked.” (Shelley 79) The creature learned
the small vocabulary he left with from the cottagers. After his experience with the cottagers and
after reading the books “Paradise Lost”, Plutarch’s Lives” and “Sorrows of Werter” the creature
learned human nature and the rise and fall of empires, but also they reminded him of how
different he was and that he was cut off from mankind. These three characters are self-educated
by varying degrees and with equally outside