Streetcar Named Desire
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This essay will focus on the way Walton’s letters bring out the main themes that will increase the reader’s understanding of the rest of the novel.
In Walton’s letter, an important character is introduced, Victor Frankenstein. In the second letter, Walton regrets his lack of friends. He feels lonely and remote, unable to find a space in this world for him. When Walton meets the stranger, he picks him up as a friend he always wanted to have. Walton’s desire for companionship resembles the monster’s desire for a friend throughout the novel when he realizes he doesn’t speak the same language as the other people he meets.
This parallel between Victor and Walton seems to show that the two have things in common
The desire for knowledge and its impacts are important in these letters. The stranger tells Walton, “You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been.”
Walton, like Frankenstein is captivated by the desire to learn, and try to find answers to things no one knows about: “What may not be expected in a country of eternal light?”
Finally, Victor and Walton both have very loving family backgrounds. The beginning of the book starts with Walton sending letters to his sister Margaret to update her tells her that he is safe. Victor, on his side, is very loving to Elizabeth and marries her later on in the play.
The mood of the letters change from the beginning to the end. The first letter is all good new from Robert Walton saying that he is finally on his trip to the pole and that he is ready to discover and experience some new things. �you will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement..’ and �calm sea’, �undiscovered solitudes’ are both quotes showing the good side of the first letter. The second and third letters are mostly negative talking about Walton’s lack of friends. �Absence’, �I have no friends’, �severe evil’, �severe’ create a negative mood that can be referred to loneliness in this case.
In the 19th century, Romantic had very little education so they went on adventures, travel abroad to gain some experience and intelligence. Europe was of course a popular destination to go to because it would provide a good source for writers, just like Mary Shelley for Frankenstein.
Walton is a typical Romantic character because he did not have a good education and had to educate himself. He says in his letters that “my education was neglected, yet I was passionately fond of reading.” t
The nineteenth century was a time of change marked by the French Revolution, and its effect on notions of class and identity, the Darwinism and his effect on religious thought, the Industrial Revolution, with its ambivalence towards technology as both exciting and dangerous, and its profound effect on social class with the possibility for acquired rather than inherited wealth;
Explorers had tried and failed to make the journey from Russia to the Pacific Ocean via the Arctic Ocean. Adolf Nordenskjold later completed this expedition through the Northwest Arctic Passage in 1878—79.