How Does Justine's Trial Affect The Treatment Of Women In Frankenstein

In Ellen Moers’ critical essay Female Gothic: The Monster’s Mother (1974) on Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, she argues that Mary Shelley’s story is greatly influenced by her experience of motherhood. This essay uses the historical approach, biographical, and formalist approach at point. Moers references the cultural context of the novel, Mary Shelley’s experience as a woman and mother and how that influenced her writing, and focuses on the genre of the novel quite a bit.

The introduction of the novella states that; {B} ‘the heroine of the title story appears to be a Justine-like sacrificial virgin in a white dress’. This is a reference to Justine Moritz, a character who is falsely executed in the novel, Frankenstein. The image of the ‘sacrificial virgin’ is important as it permits the reader to view the narrator as meek and vulnerable. Precisely what Carter wants us to believe, so that the character of the narrator and her mother can be easily juxtaposed. Her vulnerability and lack of independence permits her role as the novels damsel, while her mother is something else entirely. {B} ‘The white dress; the frail child within it’.

One such aspect of Shelley’s life portrayed in the novel was the role of women in society. In general, the predominant contenders in literature in the Romantic era were men. Mary Shelley, who was tutored by her father, had to publish her novel anonymously because it would not have been accepted otherwise. In Romantic literature, women were depicted as passive with a sense for nature and intuition. This can be seen in Frankenstein during Victor’s description of Elizabeth Lavenza: “While I admired...pretension” (Volume I, Chapter I, p 39). This quote can be viewed as an oppression of women due to the patriarchal structure of the language, as well as an emphasis on the nature of women. Mary Shelley also criticizes this oppression, but does not criticize overtly. This may be due to the fact that Shelley read her mother’s works as a child, and was influenced by the pro-feminist ideals that her mother advocated for. In addition, Frankenstein, at its core, is an expression of Shelley’s political viewpoints. The years 1811 to 1817 were ones of severe deprivation and hardship for the new working class created by the Industrial

Secondly, in this novel, the female characters rely heavily on men for support and survival. Furthermore, society views the female characters as delicate beings that can not survive by themselves. As a result, they need a man to protect, cherish and provide for them. In fact, all of the female characters have a male character to which they depend on. First of all, Caroline is unable to survive after her father’s death and as a result, marries Alphonse. Alphonse “came like a protecting spirit to the poor girl.” (Pg. 18) This simile compares Alphonse to a hero and Caroline to the weak and desperate women that she is portrayed as. Furthermore, Alphonse takes care of Caroline “as a fair exotic is sheltered by her gardener, from every rougher wind.”(Pg. 19) This metaphor describes Caroline to be a “fair exotic” who is treated like a possession rather than a capable human being. By making this comparison, Shelly alludes to the idea that the female characters are as delicate as flowers and they can’t survive without the male characters. This is true in both Justine and Elizabeth’s case. Justine is dependant on Victor to free her from the accusations.

As the perception of women changes constantly, society is the only factor in creating their ideal image. These societal views are the basis of their treatment, with the expectation that it is beneficial for them. However, societal expectations of women in the Elizabethan and Victorian eras severely limit their freedoms and rights. William Shakespeare’s Othello and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein portray most women in their typical roles. Both authors depict the level of injustice in society’s treatment of women through the passivity of women causing their deaths, the silencing of vulnerable women and the portrayal of women as more humane than men.

The novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelly was published in 1818. Her parent had undoubtedly influenced her ways of writing. Her father, William Godwin is famous with his piece “An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice while her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” is two prominent radical writers who call for reform during French Revolution. Bringing both feminism and radical views from her parents, Shelley critiques women’s weak, docile and uneducated character. She also shows how women are often degraded and treated unjustly. The reason she brought the issues forward is to make women realize that they should improve their position and women should not conform to the dogma that they are always weak.

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

All throughout Justine's imprisonment and death, Shelley plays with the idea of innocence versus guilt. When William is killed Justine who is portrayed as an innocent bystander is convicted of the crime. When she is arrested everyone is confused because no one believes that she could have done this. This is because everyone sees her as cute and innocent.“Who is safe , if she is to be convicted of crime? I rely on her innocence as certainly as i do upon my own”(81). Even most of the characters believe that she is innocent but,

     Romantic writer Mary Shelley’s gothic novel Frankenstein does indeed do a lot more than simply tell story, and in this case, horrify and frighten the reader. Through her careful and deliberate construction of characters as representations of certain dominant beliefs, Shelley supports a value system and way of life that challenges those that prevailed in the late eighteenth century during the ‘Age of Reason’. Thus the novel can be said to be challenging prevailant ideologies, of which the dominant society was constructed, and endorsing many of the alternative views and thoughts of the society. Shelley can be said to be influenced by her mothers early feminist views, her father’s

Over the years, the monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has become universally portrayed in one way: a tall, green-skinned, dumb brute with no language or reasoning abilities. Society has turned the story of Frankenstein into a mere horror story, dehumanizing the monster more than was intended in Shelley’s novel. However, the message of Frankenstein is a far cry from the freak show displayed by the media. While many people may only see Frankenstein as a grotesque story meant to thrill its audience, its purpose goes much deeper as it advocates for the equal rights of women in society.

Frankenstein feels utter remorse when he is aware that Justine will not be spared. An analogy is used here – Justine's tortures are being compared to those of Frankenstein. A sophisticated metaphor

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a critique of the Byronic hero, as exemplified in Lord Byron’s “Manfred.” The Byronic hero is a protagonist who has the following traits: self-inflicted agony, a high self esteem, isolation from society, an exaggerated sense of independence, and genuine guilt. All of these traits Manfred bears, but Victor lacks two of these attributes. The lead protagonists, Victor and Manfred, have two key differences: genuine remorse and independence. Victor’s guilt is false when compared with that of Manfred. Victor relinquishes some of his autonomy to the monster in Frankenstein, in contrast to Manfred’s steadfast hold of complete self government. These differences, seen in Victor’s personality amount to a critique of

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.

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein the critical essay “Lesbian Panic and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” (“Lesbian Panic”) by Frann Michel approaches Frankenstein from a gender perspective and applies Adrienne Rich’s lesbian continuum, the “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” where female relationships, mother-daughter/sisters/female friendships which all fall under the umbrella of lesbian relations, to the relationships that are present in Frankenstein. Frann Michel clarifies through her essay that any work of literature that takes a critical point of view of heterosexual relationships is, in fact, a lesbian text. Michel states that in Frankenstein the motion of lesbian panic is prevalent because lesbian desire is avoided at all costs – during the 1800’s society was rampant with panic, or phobia, amongst those who were afraid of potential sexual desires with one another. Lesbians were considered “Sapphic monstrosities” (Michel 351). In placing female characteristics on all characters in the novel Michel argues, in “Reading Mothers and Lovers”, that Victor Frankenstein’s “maternal anxiety” and his creature’s unfulfilled desire for a female is a doubling of them reflecting with their female counterparts under the lesbian continuum (Michel 355). In “Difference and Desire” Michel claims that Justine and Elizabeth’s tender moments at the end of Justine’s life comes to an end as a result of her unjust confinement and murder. The creature created by Victor is henceforth the

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein divides the world within between the public and private realm, as if it were an almost delusional relationship between the monster and Victor. A Lacanian approach, the study and development of the ideas and theories of the dissenting French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, becomes useful in interpreting the text with a psychoanalysis tool of literature. This approach provides the reader with insight on two different types of orders: symbolic and imaginary. Alphonse Frankenstein on one hand, is a duteous father and judge; in both the De Laceys and the Frankensteins, the possible marriage of Victor to Elizabeth, the acquired scientific knowledge of Krempe, and the trial of Justine. These episodes set an example of a social order imprinted in a patriarchal type of marriage and a phallic state. However, on the other hand, there exists a type of separation of Victor and the monster as neither belong to an actual family. Their infinite captivation with each other, the incompetency to communicate themselves with anyone else, with Robert Walton as the exception and the narrator, exemplify and support their state of solitude. Victor 's seclusion with his imaginary “other self”, external from all of society and communication, induces him to defy and attack his family, friend, and potential spouse whenever there is threat towards that “other self.”