Ambition

Question 1

‘My life might have been passed in ease and luxury; but I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path.’ Walton, Letter 1

Answer 1

Desperate to succeed
Foreshadow ambition of Frankenstein
Moral superiority for being hard working instead of living in luxury, yet his motivation is fame and success, not other benefits

Question 2

‘One man’s life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought’ - Walton, Letter 4

Answer 2

Importance placed on ambition
Willing to do and sacrifice everything in order to achieve his goals: at the expense of other people around him

Question 3

‘What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?’ - Walton, Letter 3

Answer 3

Believes man is above all else
Nothing can stop man, but it can
Thinks ambition takes precedence over all else

Question 4

‘Unhappy man! Do you share my madness? Have you drunk also of the intoxicating draught? Hear me – let me reveal my tale, and you will dash the cup from your lips!’ - Frankenstein, Letter 4

Answer 4

Frankenstein’s ambition was his own downfall
Wants to prevent the downfall of other due to their ambition
Acknowledges the control ambition has over people

Question 5

‘It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of things or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my inquiries were directed at the metaphysical, or in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world.’ - Frankenstein, Chapter 2

Answer 5

Wants to play God
Know the unknown/unknowable
Different to those around him
Ambition spurs him on to keep learning and gaining knowledge
Mindlessly pursuing the promise of knowledge and wisdom.

Question 6

‘For when I would account to myself for the birth of that passion, which afterwards ruled my destiny, I find it arise, like a mountain river, from ignoble and almost forgotten sources; but swelling as it proceeded, it became the torrent which, in its course, has swept away all my hopes and joys.’ - Frankenstein, Chapter 2

Answer 6

Ambition brought everything he loved down with him
Comparison to nature shows never ending cycle, won’t stop until something else stops it, grows and grows until it can no longer be controlled, destroys everything in its path
The ambition of Frankenstein has destroyed all that mattered to him.