The Unreliability Of Robert Walton

Unraveling the Truth: The Unreliability of Robert Walton In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein we follow Victor Frankenstein’s life and the life he gave to the Creature. While following the story of these two characters we are also introduced to several different individuals. These characters each share their time as narrators and as the book progresses we begin to see that the unreliability has a high importance in the validity of Victor Frankenstein’s life story. Although the story is told through a variety of first-person narrators, the main narrators are Victor Frankenstein, the Creature, and Robert Walton. Each of these narrators have their own perspective. This makes it tough for the reader to distinguish the truth. Most of the story is told from the perspective of Robert Walton. When we read this novel from the perspective of Robert Walton we see that he is an unreliable narrator.

Because Walton is emotionally vulnerable and seeks a friend it can be hard to trust his word since his emotions are affecting his honesty. We also know that because he seeks such a strong friendship in Victor that he is willing to do a lot to keep him close. He is initially fascinated by Victor's story and becomes his confidant, which may lead him to take Victor's account at face value without critically analyzing it. Towards the end of the book we see how Walton’s friendship and emotions get in the way of his reliability when he admits “Frankenstein discovered that I made notes concerning his history: he asked to see them, and then himself corrected and augmented them (Shelley 161). ” When Walton allows Victor to change his notes it puts the whole story in question and leads us as readers to the realization that he is untrustworthy as a