Here Mary Shelley introduces another theme that will continually surface through the
course of the novel, what Percy Bysshe Shelley in his preface to the first edition
termed "the amiableness of domestic affection" (I:Pref:3). Later, when Victor must
confront how far as a student he strayed from bring content in his family circle,
he will inveigh against his folly and even link it politically to the imperialistic
exploitation of unoffending innocent peoples (I:3:12). As with a number of elements
in this novel, however, the further one pursues the central value of the domestic
affections in Frankenstein, the more ambivalent appears their representation. For
example, there is no small irony in the fact that what makes Victor Frankenstein and
Robert Walton interesting as characters and helps to bond their friendship is their
inability to find satisfaction within such narrow limits of endeavor. And the same
might be said in 1816 for the unsanctioned alliance of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin
and Percy Bysshe Shelley.