Female Characters Of Mary Shelley 's Frankenstein

Can you imagine Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein, the great work of literature, without, for example, such female characters as Mrs. Margaret Saville, Elizabeth Lavenza, and Justine Moritz? In this case the novel will have no meaning. All the women help to develop the plot, and without them Frankenstein will lose its spirit. Although these heroines have a lot in common in their characters: they are all strong-willed, kind, careful, and selfless, at the same time, each of them is unique, and each plays her own role in the novel. Mrs. Margaret Saville is the woman to whom the narrator tells the story. Elizabeth Lavenza is the beloved of Victor Frankenstein. Justine Moritz is the heroine who is accused by mistake of murdering

Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein primarily focuses on Victor and his monster, but women also play a part. There are three major female figures in the novel; the housekeeper for the Frankenstein family: Justine, Victor’s “adopted cousin” and later wife: Elizabeth, and the never completed female monster. To both Victor and the monster woman are desired objects that offer comfort and companionship, but as the novel goes on, women become targets for revenge. This goes to show that the women in Frankenstein prove to be both powerless and powerful when it comes to dealing with the men that surround them.

This idea of the female role is reinforced by the fact that as the novel progresses, the women are slowly being removed- first his Mother, then Justine and then Elizabeth- “I saw Elizabeth…held the corpse of my dead mother”. This presents Frankenstein’s mental degregation and ultimately, the ctalyst for the mosntrous act- so Shelley presents the idea of a dichotomy between man and women- Darwin supported this by suggesting the hierachy of reproducion- man and woman is better than man alone.

Apart from that, women in Frankenstein are always seems to be weak and emotionally frail. For instance, readers are introduced to Caroline Beaufort in the earliest account of Victor’s history. She was at first described as some one who could survive and become the breadwinner of the family. But when her father died, she “knelt by Beaufort’s coffin, weeping bitterly” and then was taken by Alphonse to be under his care and later became his wife. After attended Elizabeth when she was sick, Caroline fell severely sick and later died. Elizabeth too, when she was told about William’s death “she fainted, and was restored with extreme difficulty. When she again lived, it was only to weep and sigh.” This shows women’s vulnerability when they are facing problems and sometimes lost their rationale, thus making them as a pitiful object. Shelley stresses how important it is for women to control their emotion. Not to throw away the sensitive values that most women naturally posses, but to learn to be sensible.

The next significant female character in Shelley’s novel, “Frankenstein”, is the character, Justine. Justine is the most pivotal female character in “Frankenstein”, as she is basically framed and executed for a murder that she didn't commit. This drives the novel along because Victor realizes that Justine is innocent and because of this, he starts to have anger and hate towards the creature who really

Women in the 18th century were often referred to as “ weak, illogical, timid, or even emotionless” ( Radek-Hill, “ Women in Literature”). This idea of women will stick around all the way until the mid 1900s, and has played a big historical issue for decades. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the idea of women being inferior to men is shown in many ways and covers throughout the book. One way she shows feminism is how she constructed the book to where the women in the book play a significantly lesser role than men. Victor Frankenstein, and his monster are the two big roles in the book, leaving little light for the female characters. When you analyze the male characters, you will notice that their actions throughout the book lead to the death and suffering of a female character. Victor is the most to blame for this because he did not speak up about his monsters creation, who in

Starting with the character Justine, she did very little talking in the novel. Unfortunately there was no stability in her life for a while she would live with her family then get passed to the Frankensteins and vice versa. The climax is when she is framed as the murderer of William Frankenstein. Instead of lashing out and denying the claims, she handled the situation in a calm manner. In her own words, she explains “God knows how entirely I am innocent. But I do not pretend that my protestations should acquit me; I rest my innocence on a plain and simple explanation of the facts…” (65). In a situation like this no one will believe the woman is innocent only God knows the truth. “But I have no power of explaining it…I am only left to conjecture concerning the probabilities by which it might have been placed in my pocket” (66). She understands that her plea will not change the minds of the persecutors. Justine is in a hopeless position, a victim of circumstance.

The idea that women were suppressed by the rigid patriarchal society leading women to become innocent victims in society is explored significantly in Frankenstein . Through a feminine reading perspective, men dictated women in the Victorian era which lead to them being subservient to the hegemony and becoming silenced victims. This theme is a common gothic preoccupation as women were always depicted as passive and had to accept that they were powerless compared to the superiority of men. Many of the female characters suffered from the patriarchal ideologies such as Justine who mentions, "I have no power… I am only left to conjecture concerning the probabilities by which it might have been placed in my pocket". Justine's dialogue characterises and reinforces the concept of women accepting their submissive role of having no voice and being vulnerable, therefore becoming silent victims of society. The vulnerability of women is further explored when the protagonist, Victor, discusses about Elizabeth and mentions that she "regretted she had not the same opportunities of enlarging her experience and cultivating her understanding" which emphasises

Throughout the entire novel of Frankenstein, the women featured in the story were viewed to be typical stereotypes of females in 1800s society. From their acclaimed weak personas to the jobs of taking care of the men in their lives, Mary Shelley purposefully portrayed women this way to fit the bill of the 1800s expectation of women. In the era of which this book was written, women were expected to follow the rules placed on them and succumb to the power of men by obeying their wishes. This was made crystal clear in the novel when Victor Frankenstein claims his sister and soon to be wife as a possession, “I...look upon Elizabeth as mine” (Shelley 27-28). This theme of female ownership is relevant throughout the novel as it demonstrates how women were treated like property in that time. Women were seen as incapable of work and unequal to men because at the time only men were expected to provide for their families. The idea of feminism was not relevant or respected at this time because of the social norms placed on 1800s society.

It is because of this that Shelley seems to suggest that Frankenstein overstepped his boundaries as a man by trying to create life. In the critique, “Female Gothic: The Monster’s Mother,” Ellen Moers points out that “Frankenstein’s exploration of the forbidden boundaries of human science does not cause the prolongation and extension of his own life, but the creation of a new one. He defies mortality not by living forever, but by giving birth” (220). Clearly Frankenstein realizes he has overstepped his boundaries as a man as those to whom he is closest are killed one by one as a result of the creation of the monster: first his brother William, then Justine, Clerval, Elizabeth, his father, and, ultimately, himself. This could be seen as analogous to men in society during the nineteenth century and before: overstepping their boundaries by creating a patriarchal society. Shelley seems to suggest that if men were to continue to take as much control away from women as they were back then, society would eventually become a “monster” that would destroy everyone.

Upon further probing, there is perhaps a deeper terror rooted in Frankenstein, which subtly appears to stem his hesitancy at creating not just another monster, but specifically a female monster. Because Victor Frankenstein fears the existence of a female free of restrictions that he cannot impose, he destroys her, thus eliminating the female’s options of becoming either completely feminine through becoming a mother and mate, or totally unfeminine by opting to leave her partner and face the world alone.

The female characters in Frankenstein represent the treatment of women in the early 1800’s. Women who are deprived of their female roles and are enclosed in a feminine sphere of domesticity. In the novel, Frankenstein, the women characters are treated as property and have little privileges in relationship to the male characters, the women suffer and are eventually destroyed showing how unimportant they are in the book’s society, and when it comes to reproduction of human’s, man thinks it pointless to have women play that role. These attacks on the innocent prove that women are second-rate in the novel.

In the novel Frankenstein, the author Mary Shelley reinforced the role of female nature in a book that is predominantly male-oriented. The female character is an underlying feature throughout the whole novel. For example, when Victor Frankenstein created his Monster from dead body parts, he disregarded the laws of female reproduction. Both Anne K. Mellor and Jonathon Bate argue that Victor defiled the feminine nature when he created his Monster from unnatural means. Mellor argued in her essay, “Possessing Nature: The Female in Frankenstein,” that Victor eliminated the necessity to have females at all (355). There will not be a need for females if new beings are created in a laboratory. The disruption of mother nature is one of the novel’s original sins (479). In Bate’s essay, “Frankenstein and the State of Nature,” he argued that Victor Frankenstein broke the balance between female principles of maternity and mother nature (477). Frankenstein broke nature and undermined the role of females. The argument of Mellor was more persuasive than the discussion of Bate because she was able to provide more evidence that Victor Frankenstein dishonored the role of female nature.

Women in Frankenstein are portrayed as passive and are seen to be supporters and nurturers. Victor contemplates creating a companion for his monster because he feels like a man needs a women to care and look after just as the women in his life tried to do with him. The creature is in search for compassion and feels that he will find it with a woman. 2. Victor becomes ill multiple times as following confrontations with his creation. Victor uses his illness to avoid the problems and his creature. Ultimately though, Victor’s illnesses make things worse and have the problems carry on for a while instead of handling the situation. 3. All the monster really needs and wants is attention and affection like any other. The audience of the book can somewhat

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein demonstrates a variety of women from distinct backgrounds where the majority faces a doomed fate due to the patriarchal society. Furthermore, the overall representation of women in Frankenstein is passiveness and submissiveness towards the decision and actions of men; they are portrayed as absent due to their minor roles. The “absence” of women could have been the very reason why there are so many downfalls throughout the novel. The death of Victor’s mother due to scarlet fever, the innocent Justine executed, Elizabeth (the beautiful wife) killed by the creature, proves the powerlessness and the passive nature of women that led to their unfortunate death even though, the only woman, Safie broke the chains of the