• my first impulses The repression of instinctive response continues as Walton, deeply mindful of the
    solemn and reiterated injunction of Victor Frankenstein to exact vengeance upon his
    Creature, hesitates before the presence of the other being. In essence, he substitutes
    a reality for an abstraction, his own actuality for the vicarious experience provided
    by Victor's narrative. Implied in this act is the priority of individual responsibility
    for independent judgment. That Walton is preoccupied by his "impulses" in the plural
    may indicate how difficult, complex, and responsive to particular circumstances such
    a judgment must be.