Frankenstein: Walton’s Ambition and His Decision to Turn Back

In Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein, Walton’s decision to heed his crew’s demand to return gives the conclusion a decisive test: will a person pursuing an extraordinary goal change course when others bear its risks? Walton gives up the expedition’s intended achievement, but Victor’s story has shown what can happen when ambition remains unchecked by responsibility. The final scene sharpens that contrast. Walton agrees to turn back, yet the dying Victor urges the crew to continue pursuing the Creature. The crew’s demand and Victor’s appeal place competing visions of perseverance before the reader at once. Shelley does not suggest that all aspiration is wrong or that Walton’s choice erases the novel’s tragedies. Instead, the ending suggests that ambition becomes culpable when it treats other people’s safety as expendable—and that choosing to stop can prevent a further wrong, even when it cannot repair past suffering.

Walton’s hesitation matters because the crew’s demand brings his goal into conflict with his responsibility as expedition leader. The choice to return is not equivalent to deciding that the expedition never mattered: he must give up its intended achievement because continuing would disregard the people exposed to its risks. That sequence—demand, hesitation, decision—makes his response a deliberate reversal rather than an absence of ambition. It also means the crew is not merely a backdrop to Walton’s personal development. Their demand forces him to reckon with the consequences of his choice for others. The assignment’s described episode establishes this conflict; its significance emerges more fully when Walton’s decision is set beside the final act of Victor, whose voice continues to press for pursuit even as he is dying.

Victor’s history explains why his last appeal is troubling. He discovers how to animate lifeless matter (Shelley, Frankenstein), but the discovery itself does not settle whether his ambition is admirable. Its moral meaning depends on his response to what he has created and the consequences that follow. Victor fails to provide sustained care to the Creature, and the novel connects this failure to suffering beyond their relationship. William is murdered, and Justine is tried for the crime even though Victor knows she is innocent and blames himself (Shelley, Frankenstein). These events do not mean Victor personally commits every act of violence. Rather, Victor has knowledge relevant to the danger and injustice, yet fails to speak openly and protect those around him. His persistence is morally significant because he pursues his own purposes while others suffer consequences he helps set in motion. When the dying Victor later urges the crew to pursue the Creature, the request extends this pattern: his determination remains compelling to him, even when others would bear the danger of acting on it.

The Creature’s appeal clarifies the responsibility Victor has failed to meet. He tells Victor, “I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel” (Shelley, Frankenstein). By invoking the relationship between a maker and a created being, the Creature asks Victor to recognize an obligation, not merely his own power. This appeal does not erase the harm the Creature causes or make Victor responsible for every choice the Creature makes. It does, however, establish abandonment as part of the conflict’s moral history. That history makes Victor’s final appeal to Walton more complicated than a simple call to courage. Victor speaks from a history of grief and injury, but he also asks others to continue a pursuit shaped by his own actions. The reader can understand his desire for vengeance without treating it as a command that Walton ought to obey.

Victor’s destruction of the unfinished second creature reveals that his persistence is not a single, consistent virtue. He tears apart the work, breaking his promise to the Creature (Shelley, Frankenstein). The decision can be understood as arising from fear about what might follow; Shelley does not reduce it to a simple choice between courage and cowardice. But Victor’s fear does not resolve the obligations created by his earlier promise and actions. Instead, the destruction deepens the rupture between creator and Creature. Against this background, his later demand that the crew continue pursuing the Creature does not simply restore a noble purpose. It shows that he remains committed to pursuing his own end, even when others face the risks of carrying it out. The contrast is not between a person who acts and one who does nothing: both Victor and Walton make consequential choices. The difference is whether a goal remains answerable to those affected by it.

The conclusion brings that difference into focus by placing Walton’s decision beside Victor’s dying appeal. Walton accepts the crew’s demand to return; Victor urges the men to continue. The two responses do not have equal authority simply because both express determination. Victor’s words come from a life shaped by loss, but the crew must live with the danger of the expedition’s continuation. By heeding their demand, Walton recognizes that their safety cannot be subordinated to the pursuit simply because Victor’s desire is intense. This does not make Walton’s decision painless or prove that Victor’s grief is insincere. It does make the ending a judgment about whose interests ambition allows a leader to count. Walton’s act gives the crew’s expressed limit practical force, rather than treating it as an obstacle to be overcome.

Walton’s choice cannot undo the novel’s earlier suffering: William has been murdered, Justine has undergone an unjust trial, and Victor’s broken promise cannot be made unbroken. Its importance is prospective. By turning back rather than following Victor’s appeal, Walton prevents his ambition from automatically dictating what happens next. That limited difference gives the ending its force. Victor’s story has not made Walton immune to ambition, but it has placed before him the consequences of persistence without responsibility. The novel closes not with proof that wiser choices can erase damage, but with evidence that a listener to Victor’s story can respond differently when purpose conflicts with obligation. Shelley’s judgment is therefore qualified: ambition may inspire meaningful striving, but it becomes indefensible when a person demands that others bear its costs without regard for their safety.

How the argument works

The essay follows the assignment’s central sequence: the crew demands to return, Walton agrees, and Victor urges the crew to continue pursuing the Creature. That final contrast is essential because it makes Walton’s decision an action taken against Victor’s continuing appeal, not merely a general lesson drawn from his story. The analysis then connects Victor’s earlier discovery, the events involving William and Justine, the Creature’s appeal, and the broken promise to the question of responsibility. Plot details are cited parenthetically to Shelley’s novel; interpretation is distinguished from fact by explaining how those events support the claim about ambition. The conclusion limits its argument: Walton’s decision can change what happens next, but cannot undo the suffering already narrated.