Frankenstein: The Declaration Of Rights For Women

Parallel to the time-period, Elizabeth seems to exist by and through Victor’s perception of her. She is his property, and he takes her in as gift. He looked at Elizabeth as, “mine- mine to protect, love, and cherish,” (Shelley, 18). It is also interesting to note that her presence in the house

The relationship between Elizabeth and Victor lead to the assumption that possession of someone results in some sort of an intimate relationship: “my more than sister, since till death she was to be mine only” (Shelley, 37). The tone of this passage is incredibly possessive. It seems as if the only reason Victor is giving any praise or importance to Elizabeth is because she is his until death. Due to the powerful proprietorial tone of this line, I got the impression that Victor believes he is the only one who gets to decide when Elizabeth can die. Another tone I get from this line, is a sense of pride. He doesn’t actually have pride toward Elizabeth, but rather he has pride in the fact that she was his and only his.

The characters Elizabeth and Georgina support the theme that a woman’s only purpose is to care for others. Men are viewed as being the head of the household and supporting his family, while the women of the household are responsible to care for the children and do the household chores. Women are looked down upon by men because they are seen as not being useful to society, which supports the theme that women are seen as being disposable. In the book Frankenstein, when Victor was five years old

Men lead intellectually satisfying lives with little emotion while women lived the opposite. They had emotionally exciting lives with little intellectual fulfillment. Victor excelled in the public sphere but could not perform in the private sphere because according to Mellor the “sexual division of labor” does not allow women or men to have both. Mellor then points out the absence of a strong willed female character. The De Lacey family was seen as an alternative to the Frankenstein family, but even they, a family based on “justice, gender equality, and mutual affection” lack a mother figure. The monster goes to Victor longing for this strong female companion but it does not exist. Mellor also explores the idea that Victor’s most passionate relationships are with men. He saw Clerval as “his former self” and Mellor describes Walton’s responses to Victor as “homoerotic.” Finally Mellor claims that Victor “rapes” nature in the destruction of an equal companion for Frankenstein and is punished “with the very electricity he has stolen.” Also with the death of Elizabeth taking away Victors ability to reproduce Mellor claims that Marry Shelley’s novel portrays the “penalty of raping

Characters Elizabeth and Georgina support the theme that women’s only purpose is to care for others. Men are viewed as being the head of the household and supporting his family, while the women of the household are responsible to care for the children and do the household chores. Women are looked down upon by men because they are seen as not being efficient or useful to society supporting the theme that women are seen as being disposable. The the book Frankenstein, when Victor was___ years of age his family adopted a peasant girl named Elizabeth. Caroline, Victor’s mother presents Elizabeth to Victor saying “I have a

Like Caroline and Safie, Elizabeth Lavenza’s father causes her unhappiness. However this is drastically confounded by the egotism of Victor Frankenstein who seeks to take on the vitally female role of the creator. Elizabeth is constructed by Shelley as an extremely positive character, whose ‘saintly soul’ shines ‘like a shrine dedicated lamp’ in the Frankenstein’s ‘happy home’. She, like her foster mother Caroline, keeps the family together ‘veiling her grief’ for the benefit of the children. However, when victor attempts to take on the role of a woman and ‘create life’ Shelley shows us that it is an unfortunate masculine characteristic to doom idealism with egotism and the pursuit of glory. Despite his noble goals of ‘unfolding the mysteries of creation’, to confer ‘inesteemable benefit’ on all mankind, Victor’s masculine egotism endures

Elizabeth longs to understand how Victor is doing in his studies at Ingolstadt. However, since she is a woman and she is approved to become part of the Frankenstein family by “They [Victor Frankenstein’s parents] consulted their village priest, and the result was that Elizabeth Lavenza became the inmate of my parents’ house … (Shelley 30)”, she can only visit Victor Frankenstein under the approval of Victor’s father. Even though Victor cannot see his beloved Elizabeth, he realizes that through his first letter that she writes, she acts like a spirit in Victor’s mind waiting for him to come home by mentioning, “Get well – and return to us. You will find a happy, cheerful home, and friends who love you dearly” (Shelley 57).

Elizabeth is an orphan who was taken in by the Frankenstein family. When Elizabeth was first seen by the Frankenstein’s, they described her as very thin and fair. They said, “her hair is like gold and her eyes like a cloudless sky. Her lips and face expressed sweetness and a good sense of understanding.” She was compared to an angel and she lives up to that comparison. Victor described her as “docile and good tempered , yet gay and playful”, “lively and animated”, and “the most fragile creature in the world”. To me Elizabeth was the caregiver. She stepped in when Caroline Frankenstein died from scarlet fever and was the only one that kept the Frankenstein family together.

She begins with a gender-neutral title as his cousin, and then takes a gender specific, non-sexual role as his sister.  She then replaces his mother, implying an indirect sexual relationship with Victor, since he is product of his mother's sexuality.  Finally, she enters a sexual relationship with Victor as his future wife.  Her murder then interrupts the progression by preventing the consummation of that relationship.  In the 1831 version this progression of intimacy is strengthened.  Elizabeth, while a small child, is presented to Victor by his mother as a gift.  He takes responsibility for her, and takes pride in her achievements, like a father to a daughter.  The father/daughter relationship is tied to sexual reproduction in the same way as the mother/son relationship.  The progression from daughter to mother implies Victor's exit from her vagina as an infant, and then the next change from mother to wife implies a desire to re-enter her body as part of a sexual relationship.

On Elizabeth’s mother’s (Caroline) death bed, she tells her that “[she] must supply [Caroline’s] place to [her] younger children” (Shelley 28). Elizabeth is replacing Caroline’s position as the mother or caregiver which is a stereotypical role for women and means that she possesses a neutering characteristic. Also, when a young Victor Frankenstein is describing Elizabeth he calls her “more than a sister, since till death she shall only be [his]” (21). From the time she was adopted as a young girl, she has been a possession in the eyes of Victor and would eventually transform from his sibling to his wife. Whether by choice or not, she became exactly what a woman is expected to be, and by her lack of breaking stereotypical barriers for women is portraying them

This notion holds true because, to our knowledge, nobody else in the story is presented as an object of Victor's affection. Victor's sexual desire for Elizabeth is displayed through the way in which he embraces and kisses her. Any doubt to the existence of this sexual desire can be explained through examination of Victor's sheltered childhood. His only interaction with females was between Elizabeth and his mother Caroline. When Victor first meets Elizabeth his mother presents her as ."..a pretty present for my Victor." Victor also states at one point that Elizabeth is "the beautiful and adored companion of all my occupations and my pleasures." It is safe to derive from these two quotations that Elizabeth was intended to be Victor's object of affection during childhood and adulthood. It is also important to note that Elizabeth was "given to him" which can also be synonymous with the term "giving one's self." This euphemism is a term coined to represent the action of engaging in sexual acts with a person.

The women in Frankenstein are forced to be submissive. Victor treats Elizabeth more like a possession or object instead of a living, breathing human being. Elizabeth is passive around Victor. She and other women of the novel, are accepting of the male-controlled society being the powerful figure because that is what they were raised to follow (Kolker). Men withdraw the women of their rights thus the women are forced to act well-mannered. “Like Elizabeth’s destruction, the monsterette’s creation and destruction dramatize how women do not function in their own right but rather as signs and conduits for men’s relations with other men” (Smith 323). Elizabeth possesses herself as being quiet and calm. This quiet behavior adds to the fact that she is a possession and not an individual. “All praises bestowed on her, I received as made to a possession of my own” (Shelly 44).

Elizabeth is the light of the house and had a close relationship with Victor- they were the soul mates that Caroline imagined (Shelley 18, 24). Elizabeth’s care for others led to a boldness that was short lived due to men’s decisions. This was seen when Elizabeth was at the trial as a witness to defend and humanize Justine against the accusation that she murdered William. However, the public’s “indignation was turned with renewed violence” and Justine was proven guilty due to irrefutable evidence and she confessed a lie to lessen the punishment, but to no avail since it sunk her lower and sentenced her death (Shelley 57-8). The only person or better yet, the only male that could have freed Justine was Victor. But, he thought that he would be seen as an insane person and so he said nothing. Elizabeth and Justine are helpless and voiceless since they are women. The constant romanticizing of the beauty of women contrasts the ugliness and separateness of the creature or in general, the outcasts. Near the end of the novel, Elizabeth was strangled by the creature since the he knew that she was the special and beautiful wife of Victor. Revenge by male figures both monster and man led to the death of Justine and Elizabeth- women that possessed no danger or hate. Safie wanted freedom and the love of her life, by disobeying and escaping her tyrannical father to Felix’s cottage (Shelley 87-90). This proves how a brave woman was able to break the passive attitude and succeed by being with Felix which is the only woman able to do that in the novel. These are the doomed fate of the majority of the women figures due to the male actions except for the rare case of

Shelley has also “othered” Elizabeth in terms of the words used to address her. There are many instances within the story referring Elizabeth as an “insect” and an “animal”. These words signify that Frankenstein does not consider Elizabeth as a normal human being; in better words, he thought of Elizabeth as a stereotypical woman of the 19th Century. He expected her to be like a "Heidi" who would "lug goat milk up the hills and not think twice"(Moore, 277). Throughout the novel, Elizabeth is described as a perfect, obedient, and submissive woman. She was destined to marry Frankenstein from a very young age, not that she opposed it, but nobody ever asks her consent. The disregard of Elizabeth is evident when Alphonse Frankenstein, Victor’s father, does not take into contemplation Elizabeth’s wish about Ernst Frankenstein’s future. He ignores Elizabeth’s suggestion and tries to force his idea upon