In the beginning of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," we are introduced to Captain Robert Walton as he embarks on his journey to explore the North Pole. During the voyage, he rescues a strange man and brings him onto the ship, and soon after befriends him. Readers do not know this yet, but this man is Victor Frankenstein, the creator of the monster. In an essential excerpt of Shelley’s story, Victor hears about Walton’s great ambitions and gives him a grave warning of the dangers of such ambition, comparing his inquisitiveness to drinking from a toxic cup. Frankenstein’s aversion to such an intense drive for discovery reveals his belief that such a mission can lead to one’s complete destruction. The pursuit of knowledge and glory leading to inevitable peril is a recurring theme throughout Frankenstein, and serves as a warning to readers to be wary of such unbridled curiosity. Robert Walton is abundantly confident in the “eventual success” of his voyage. It is also illustrated clearly earlier in the book how Walton greatly desires glory, discovery, and knowledge through which he may be immortalized. Walton goes on, “to give utterance to the burning ardour of my soul; and to say, with all the fervour that warmed me” (11). This displays his “burning” drive to succeed, as well as how such a fire warms his being. Nevertheless, as with actual fire, such warmth must always come at the cost of destruction. Continuing, Walton then foolishly relates, much to Frankenstein’s dismay, “how gladly I would sacrifice my fortune, my existence, my every hope, to the furtherance of my enterprise” (11). Walton is willing to voluntarily meet his own demise for the advancement of knowledge, at which Frankenstein can only groan, as he knows that his own doom will soon befall him because of the same willingness he had in the past. Further emphasizing his need for glory, Walton states that, to him, “One man's life or death were