‘She and I improved rapidly in the knowledge of language…’ Ch.13 P.92
The lessons that Safie were taught also taught Frankenstein how to read.
‘While I improved in speech, I also learned the science of letters, as it was taught to the stranger…’ Ch.13 P.92
Therefore, the role of Safie in the novel is also to set up the creature as literate. This ability to read is important later in the novel, when he reads Frankenstein’s journal and finds out of his peculiar birth into the world, and also when he reads the books that help with his education. It would be a weakness in the novel if the creature suddenly learned to read from nowhere, so Safie’s role is important in this way.
The books Felix reads to Safie allow the creature to be educated in the novel, had he not been educated, he would not know about the nature of mankind or indeed be able to use his intelligent, and this would have meant the novel would have taken a much different course. The education of Safie also turns into the creature’s education.
‘I obtained a cursory knowledge of history…insight into the manners of governments, and religions of the different nations of the earth…’ Ch.13 P.92. Indeed, the creature had a more well balanced education than Frankenstein did which perhaps explains the higher degree of worldly knowledge creature had, and this was set up purposefully by Shelley so thus Safie is important.
The fact Safie came from a different country also provided an opportunity for the creature to overhear Safie being told of the ‘strange system of human society’. This began to make the creature realise he was ‘a monster, a blot’ with ‘no money, no friends, no kind of property’. Through teaching Safie about the social structure in the west, the creature was able to learn he had no place in society and this threw him into great despair. Safie’s role is important because it enables the creature to realise he is abnormal. Through conversations and lessons the creature not only learns of vast scale human structure, but also on small-scale family structure and the role of parenting. This also causes the creature is question his role in the human world and he realises he has no friends and relations.
‘But where were my friends and relations? No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses…’ Ch.13 P.94
Therefore, Safie’s role is once again deemed important in the education and awareness of the creature.
The idea that Safie is a mysterious character from the east incorporates the idea of romanticism into the novel and reveals Mary Shelley’s fascination with history and foreign societies. Safie adds colour and spice to the seemingly dull and ordinary De Lacey family who although captured the creature’s attention would have soon lost the reader’s interest having to cope with such ordinary people after reading wondrous tales of the supernatural.
Safie’s upbringing with her imprisoned mother teachers the creature of the role of women in different societies and also the importance of freedom. Safie escaped a world of very little opportunity for women into a world where she had a much broader field to work in and also freedom to take a rank in society and be individual.
‘The prospect of marrying a Christian, and remaining in a country where women were allowed to take a rank in society, was enchanting to her’ Ch.14 P.96
This helped the creature to understand the importance of social rank, and to learn that his own situation was in fact so very hopeless because he did not fit in anywhere and could never have the freedom that even Safie had managed to acquire from a seemingly restricted situation. In the novel, this would also make reader’s aware of the situation in the east, and allow them some insight into it. Mary Shelley is thus using her novel to explore how differently women are viewed throughout the world, not only in Europe. She uses characters such as Justine and Elizabeth to also highlight the different roles that women have, as protectors, rational beings, and yet bitterly sometimes she reflects that they are the underdog. The oppression of the independent Safie and then her escape is a very romantic view revealed by Shelley and perhaps her use of Safie in the novel also was meant to be a bold statement about the role of women in general, yet another romantic aspect to the novel about defying convention. Shelley’s mother published books using a man’s name and Frankenstein was also published under a man’s name at first. Therefore, the role of Safie as an independent woman may have been to highlight the unfairness of convention in the 19th century.
The story also allowed the creature to learn about the cruelty and faults in mankind, through the issues Safie endured with her corrupt father.
‘I learned, from the views of social life which it developed, to admire their virtues, and to deprecate the vices of mankind.’ Ch.15 P.98
It helped the creature to experience emotions of empathy and care, because he loved the people and felt great emotion when he heard of their perils. A gothic element of the novel that people are either good or evil is also brought into Safie’s character, her father seemingly bad and herself seeming to be angelic.
Safie’s story, which involves political fights, also demonstrated to the creature a virtuous side to standing up for what you believe, and pursuing it through arduous perseverance. This may have been picked up on by the creature and mimicked in later times in the novel when he pursues Frankenstein to extract his justice, following him over tortuous terrain but remaining true to his campaign. The fight against political convention in the east also echoes the idea the book is romantic as described before with the statements about women’s convertional role. The novel even include’s extracts from Wordsworth’s Tinton Abbey, which is romantic poetry about liberation of the soul to be an individual, this is concordant with Shelley’s views on political freedom and ousting immoral convention.
Safie’s role is also one of backing up the idea that beauty is important in society. Safie’s mother was thrown into favourable circumstances because of her beauty.
‘…recommended by her beauty, she had won the heart if the father of Safie, who married her…’
and Felix also falls in love with Safie because of her beauty.
‘Felix rejected his offers with contempt; yet when he saw the lovely Safie, the youth could not help owning to his own mind the captive possessed a treasure which would fully reward his toil and hazard.’
This almost implies beauty is like currency, and beauty gives you a worth in the social structure and the creature knows he is ugly and thus places a very low value on himself. Without Safie’s story to explain this aspect, the creature may never have been aware of his physical shortcomings. Forcing the creature to experience certain emotions is an important role of Safie in the novel, because Safie and her place in the De Lacey’s lives allows Shelley to shape the personality of the creature.
To conclude, Safie is only a key part of two chapters in the book, and yet her education is also the creature’s education and so I deem she is very important. However, perhaps she could have been replaced and the book would have followed the same course. Her role in the book was to provide the means for the creature to learn about society and plant within him the ideology that would cause him to be aware that society valued him meaningless and hideous. Therefore, Safie is a key tool in the novel for Mary Shelley, and if Safie had not been included, there may have been areas of the novel that would have been hard to believe because the creature’s education and ideas had to come from somewhere. Safie provided an unusual and interesting character to explain how the creature came to be intelligent, also she provides a contrast to the experience of being educated. While education was beneficial to Safie and allowed her to fit in and blossom within her new surroundings, the creature only learned ultimately that he was an outcast, and from this knowledge his life turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy of misery and rejection.