tellingly reasserts the centrality of human continuity and connectedness. Her sudden
reassignment of the role of narrator, from Victor to Walton, also alters its assumed
audience. A ship's captain listening to the solitary voice of a dying refugee in the
Arctic wilderness shares in that sense of impacted solitude. In contrast, the vicarious
experience of Walton's sister, who is addressed directly in the next sentence and
who presumably will read this transmitted account in London, takes place at the heart
of human civilization. This inserted tag may have a second function as well, that
of reinforcing the question posed in the last paragraph of Victor's narrative, whether
Walton will honor his plea and continue Victor's obsessive pursuit of the Creature.