After reading Frankenstein for a second time, I have noticed that Mary Shelley portrays women as weak and passive, such as abandoned and long- waiting because in this time period the novel is written, women are treated as inferior to men. Including Justine, Margaret, Agatha, Safie, and Elizabeth. The person who I think plays the most emotional and important role is Elizabeth. Elizabeth’s role throughout the novel is very passive. She stays in the background in the beginning while Frankenstein is off at another country leaving her behind, even though at the same time he claims that Elizabeth is her possession and he must take care of her. Near the end of the novel instead of Frankenstein protecting his wife on their wedding night, he decides to leave the room from her and patrol keeping an eye out for the monster. To me this tells me he cares more about fulfilling and finishing his relationship with the monster rather than doing everything he can to protect Elizabeth.
For more information about roles the women play or even to learn more about Elizabeth, visit: http://bookstove.com/classics/feminism-and-mary-shelleys-frankenstein/
Women, or the display of women in Frankenstein I think is a very crucial role. Like you said, Elizabeth is very important in the novel, she connects Victor back to humanity. I think that is why the story revolves around a dark motif of leaving out the woman factor of creating life.
ReplyDeleteAlex Stofferan
Since I am doing a psychoanalysis over Victor Frankenstein I found the ending of this blog to be very familiar since I too thought that Frankenstein may not have even cared about Elizabeth when he left her behind in the hotel room. Whether or not it was on purpose, Victor's overall lack of respect for women was sick and tragic.
ReplyDeleteMichael Garcia
yes elizabeth did play an important role in the novel.he should have never left her there and protected her. he was too busy worring about the monster and not what was really important
ReplyDeleteI agree, men at this time were glorified even if they were wimps! I think he left her on purpose because the monster warned him ahead of time! I feel human nature repeats itself and many males today carry on he same thought process that Victor did: "better her than me."
ReplyDeleteCassidy S.
Interesting you say that, I could not figure out why so many people were writing their research papers over feminism, I guess I just didn't make that connection.
ReplyDelete-Cassidy Park
Frankenstein was always more worried for himself, even though he says he is madly in love with elizabeth, he always was self-centerd.
ReplyDeleteyvette ortiz
The way the female gender is represented by Shelley is an immense exaggeration of how she must of felt women were viewed by socitey and themselves. When broken down to the most simplest of states, the male and female characters really did have a more static, 2 dimensional feel to them than when first introduced. I agree with you about how Victor chose to worry about facing the monster rather than defending his love as well.
ReplyDeleteBrian McNulty
Shelley does show us how women were view during the time period, but as Brian says it is an exaggeration of the truth. Elizabeth was Victor wife but, his passion for the creature was overwhelming, and he lost sight of what really matter.
ReplyDeleteMichael Trammell
This would make a lot of since for me because throughout the story. There are a few times that I feel like the woman in the story are either hardly described or degraded in desciption. Also I couldn't help but jump up and down during the wedding night because Victor was so stupid for leaving the room and Elizebeth alone
ReplyDeleteits pretty sad how she describes women in this novel, but at that time period i guess she does have a point.
ReplyDeleteVery well said by joshua some books either dont describe women very well while other degrade them in description
ReplyDeleteIf what you are saying is true, along with what Cassidy S. says about the glorification of wimpy men in Frankenstein, why is does Mary Shelley write it this way? I figured she'd have empowered women in the novel because her mom was the supposed first feminist.
ReplyDeleteGilberto Flores
I think Shelley does somewhat portray the treatment of women not only through this novel but also through some of her other works.
ReplyDeleteGilbert Rangel
Guhh, Victor's idea to keep an eye out for the monster instead of being there was dumb.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, yeah the women just seem to kind of be there as you said. Except for Elizabeth being just a little bit more important because her death is what gets him to completely chase the creature without regards to anything else.