Frankenstein Volume 1: Letters 1-4 Questions and Answers
by Mary Shelley

Quiz Questions

1. What did Walton read during his childhood?
2. What ambition of Walton’s ended in failure?
3. How did Walton prepare for his expedition?
4. What is the one thing Walton feels is missing from his life?
5. What did the ship’s master do for his fiancee?
6. To what poem does Walton allude?
7. Why has Victor traveled so far north?
8. What does Walton say that causes Victor to call him an “unhappy man”?
9. How does Walton feel about Victor?
10. Why does Victor decide to tell his story?

Quiz Answers

1. Walton read his uncle’s books about expeditions to the Arctic.
2. Walton says he failed in his ambition to be a poet.
3. Walton prepared for his expedition by enlisting as a sailor on whaling ships; studying math, science, and medicine; and getting used to cold, hunger, thirst, and lack of sleep.
4. Walton feels he is missing the companionship of a true friend.
5. The ship’s master gave his fortune to the man his fiancee loved and left Russia so the two would be free to marry.
6. Walton alludes to “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
7. Victor has traveled north in pursuit of the other man on a sledge Walton and the sailors saw from the ship.
8. Walton says he would sacrifice everything to gain the knowledge he seeks.
9. Walton feels great affection and sympathy for Victor and says he has come to love him like a brother.
10. Victor decides to tell his story because he believes Walton might be able to draw a useful moral from it.