Finding Solace in Robert Walton

By: Alex

Nothing is more powerful than a moment you truly connect with someone. I’m not talking on a romantic level, but just in general. Connecting with someone who shares your beliefs or passions. You feel like a part of you that is so misunderstood is now deeply appreciated.

Image courtesy of Wordsworth Classics

That being said, sometimes it is hard to fulfill, or even have respect for, your dreams if you don’t have someone to connect and share with. How can you grow and prepare to reach your goals if you don’t have anyone that identifies with you? It becomes harder to open your mind and feel optimistic because you feel that no one truly believes in you.

Sometimes, it’s hard for me to explain to people exactly what I want out of life, and that can make me feel lonely. But I had a refreshing feeling when I picked up Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein for a quick read for my English class. As I began reading Robert Walton’s letters at the beginning of the book, I strangely identified with him on a on a level that I never expected. As Walton begins the story, he writes to his sister, talking about the adventures he’s going on and the dreams he has of accomplishing something much bigger than himself. At the beginning, his letters sound grand and optimistic. As a reader, I pictured Robert as this valiant character who will stop at nothing to live his dreams.

But in the second letter, I saw a deeper side of Robert. The part of his letter that resonated with me, that made me realize that I weirdly had so much in common with this 18th century male explorer, was when he said, “I have no one near me, gentle yet courageous, possessed of a cultivated as well as of a capacious mind, whose tastes are like my own, to approve or amend my plans.”

Yes, that was borderline old English. But basically what Walton is trying to tell his sister is that none of his shipmates understand his dreams. They are below him. All they know is sailing and working and sailing and working. A routine lifestyle. Robert’s dreams are bigger than theirs. And now it hurts that he can’t share them with anyone.

At that moment, I realized the truth in Walton’s character because I completely knew where he was coming from. I understood what he meant when he said he couldn’t connect with anyone, because I so often feel that way. It is so difficult to be stuck in a sea of people who just don’t understand. They can take you for surface value, but they can never connect with you on a deeper level, the level where you actually feel something.

Because I related to Walton so much, it made me a little worried. At the end of the story, Walton gives up his dreams and goes back to England. He sounds so defeated when he ends his letters with, “I am returning to England. I have lost my hopes of utility and glory;-- I have lost my friend.”

Is that what life is? You dream and dream and then you get stuck with people you can’t connect with and that forces you to give up? You work and pine and you get nothing? That idea scared me. To see the big, heroic dreamer that I loved from the beginning of the book turn into a defeated coward was very unsettling. I wanted the character I connected with to have all the glory. Because if he could do it, maybe I could too.

I feel like Robert Walton would have hung this poster in his cabin. 

I got scared and immediately thought I should find people I could connect with to keep my dreams alive. Maybe the reason why Walton lost his fervor was because he surrounded himself with men who didn’t understand him. I didn’t want to conform, and I didn’t want to loose my passion, so I struggled to find my place.

I wanted to feel that connection that I missed so much. I wanted to realize someone respected and appreciated me because they could relate to my passions. I wanted someone to know me almost as well as I knew myself. 

Well, it turns out, I still haven’t found my place. And I really don’t have many people who I think truly understand me. But that’s okay because Walton taught me that you can’t go looking for the people that are going to matter to you. No one understands your dreams as well as you do, so sometimes you have to realize things on your own. Because Walton didn’t find his place on his ship he traveled on for so long, it ended up taking his life in another direction; What I think was the right direction all along.

So, each time I struggle trying to fit in or begging people to understand what I want out of life, I realize now that it only strengthens my character. The people I meet (or do not meet) and the struggles I endure are what’s going to allow me to know myself better and guide me in my life’s direction. And I know that once I get there, I will have plenty of people to connect with, on a meaningful level, much like I did with Walton last week in the library.

The (Less than) Amazing Spiderman

By: Emily

Art by Emily

It may seem impossible to go anywhere without hearing something about Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spiderman. Whether it be television commercials or taxicabs, it seems impossible to escape the constant and somewhat incessant promotion of the new Spiderman movie. Many were probably wondering as to why a new Spiderman movie was even being remade when less than ten years ago Tobey Maguire came swinging to theaters as the masked superhero. The writers of The Amazing Spiderman would probably claim it was because they wanted a new take on the series; A darker Spiderman for a darker time. The obvious truth about it is that Columbia Pictures knew the first Spiderman series was profitable (Sam Raimi’s three Spiderman movies raked in a whopping $2.1 billion collectively) and wanted to recreate that success. Now I don’t have a problem with wanting to make money off of a movie—after all, what is a film without profit? However, when that is your main goal and it is obvious, that’s where my problem arises.

My main qualm with The Amazing Spiderman comes from the screenplay. The writers seemed to change just enough of the story to pass it off as a new reinvented film, but not enough to claim a re-envisioned version of Spiderman. The plot was one-note and predictable, the dialogue cheesy and cliché. "We all have secrets; the ones we keep and the ones that are kept from us," broods our masked hero.

 Not to say this movie wasn’t entertaining. After moviegoers’ longtime exposure to mindless explosions and fight scenes, directors of superhero movies at this point should know how to do, if anything, excitement. Webb certainly included enough meaningless thrills to keep the audience entertained, but excessive action and mediocre use of 3D does not a good story nor a good film make.

A darker Spiderman for a darker audience needs someone who is brooding yet awkward and they seem to have found their leading man in half-British half-American all gorgeous Andrew Garfield. A relative unknown (Garfield starred as Eduardo Saverin in The Social Network among roles in other lesser-known films such as Never Let Me Go and Boy A, both of which are lovely little films, in my opinion), he lent himself nicely to the awkward and sensitive Parker. Needless to say, we’ll probably be seeing quite a bit of Garfield in the future, both in his skintight spidy-suit and out.

When it comes down to it, almost everything about The Amazing Spiderman felt contrived. I blame this partly on the shoulders of director Marc Webb. While he did not pen the atrociously predictable screenplay, some of his choices as a director felt awkward and misguided. Many encounters between Gwen and Peter (real life couple Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield) felt awkward and uncomfortable. Regardless, as long as people keep flocking to the theaters for this less than amazing film, Hollywood is sure to sign up Spiderman for a few more sequels before another reboot comes along in ten years.