The protagonists of Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein are deeply influenced by the books they've read. Michelle Turner Sharp in fact claims that the creature reads books as if they were "the story of his own life" (81); but he is not alone in doing so: the other two protagonists, Victor and Walton, do the same. The protagonists all try to "write" their most influential books into a reality by living them. In other words, Walton's expedition to the North Pole, Victor's pursuit of creating life, and the creature's desire for a female are all attempts to live as the protagonists of the books they've read, attempts to make those books their own "true history" (Shelley 87).
Walton spent his childhood in his uncle's library surrounded by books of "voyages made for the purpose of discovery" (Shelley 8), which constituted his only form of education. In addition to those books of voyages, Walton also read poetry, and for a while he tried to "[live] in a paradise of [his] own creation" (Shelley 8), or to live in a poem, by becoming a poet. However, he fails to do so. Walton then goes against his father's "dying injunction" and "embark[s] in a sea-faring life", which is his "earlier bent" (Shelley 8).
