Justine is also presented as a victim of the church “my confessor besieged me. He threatened and menaced”, “He threatened excommunication and hellfire in my last moments if I continued obdurate”. Justine’s role as a victim is reiterated several times “the unhappy victim, “the poor victim”, “the poor sufferer”. Justine is presented as impotent against all the pressure put upon her “a wretch doomed to ignominy and perdition”. She is described as fragile and speaks of how her “enemies crush” her. Justine is also presented as impotent through her reactions to her situation. All self-control gives way to violent hysteria “she threw herself at the feet of Elizabeth, weeping bitterly”, “Her voice was suffocated with sobs”. She loses all desire to prove her innocence and resigns herself to her fate “she indeed gained the resignation she desired”, “I am resigned to the fate awaiting me”. Justine, at first, appears to possess great strength in the face of death but soon loses control of herself and is ultimately presented as a victim.
b) Shelley uses language in a variety of ways to create effect. She uses strong emotive language to emphasise the unjust nature of Justine’s situation, for example, lexis is used which collocates around the theme of melancholy “mourning”, “sorrowful”, “misery”. Shelley also uses lexis that is linked semantically by pain and death “tortures”, “agony”, “fatality”, “murder”. Rhetoric is also used “that you should believe your Justine … was capable of a crime which none but the devil himself could have perpetrated”. The negative connotation this gives provokes sympathy from the reader. In order to present Justine as a victim, Shelley constantly uses language with connotative effects of powerlessness “I beg”, “I plead”. These imperatives imply weakness and impotence and invoke the reader’s sympathy for her. The same technique is used with Elizabeth in order to illustrate that she is incapable of facing reality when it is difficult, language indicating impotence is used in association with Elizabeth “I wish”, “I cannot”.
Shelley also uses a lot of language linked semantically with religion. This is mainly used by Victor to contrast between the evil of those who persecute Justine, “hellish sport”, “perdition”, “hellfire” and the virtue of those who support her “heaven”, “prayers”, “saintly sufferer”. It is significant that Victor associates himself with negative religious imagery, consequently implying that he is involved in the persecution of Justine “I bore a hell within me”, “my unhallowed arts”.
The implication that Victor himself is directly responsible for the deaths of William and Justine is illustrated in the language he uses. Although he clearly states that the monster has carried out the murder of William “the daemon who had (I did not for a minute doubt) murdered my brother”, Victor implies that the monster was his own instrument for murder “her who suffered through me”, “my first victims”, “my unhappy victim”. The possessive pronoun of used in each of these phrases is significant as it connects the actions of the monster directly to Victor. Victor also acknowledges full responsibility for the death of William “I, the true murderer”, suggesting that the monster is in fact part of Victor.
Victor himself uses very hyperbolic language to express his own suffering, indeed, he concentrates on his own predicament more than Justine’s “I suffered living torture”, “The tortures of the accused did not equal mine”, “fangs of remorse tore at my bosom”. Victor is presented by Shelley as using such language in order to highlight the fact that he is concerned primarily with himself. It is also important for Shelley to present Victor this way in the chapter so as to avoid him being thought of as virtuous as in the novel, he is shown as being selfish and irresponsible. Shelley uses language subtly to imply suggestions, for example the monster being part of Victor, which are important to the novel as a whole.
c) In “Frankenstein” Mary Shelley criticises the feminine ideal of her day by using several female characters in various ways. The major female characters in the novel are Caroline Beaufort, Elizabeth Lavenza, Justine Moritz and Safie De Lacey.
Elizabeth is the most important female character in the novel as she is Victor’s love interest and for a very short time, his wife. Elizabeth represents the feminine ideal of the time and is used by Shelley to show that women were very much constrained by the society of her time. One of Elizabeth’s most important virtues is her physical beauty “ a creature who seemed to shed radiance from her looks”, “her hair was the brightest living gold”, “her brow was clear and ample, her blue eyes cloudless, and her lips and moulding of her face so expressive of sensibility and sweetness”. The importance of beauty is a major theme in the novel and illustrates the superficiality of society.
Elizabeth’s other main virtue is her domesticity. She is described as a companion to Victor, rather than having a personality and life of her own “harmony was the soul of our companionship”, “ I might have become sullen in my study, rough through the ardour of my nature, but she was there to subdue me.” Her virtue lies in her suitability for companionship rather than in her intellect or cleverness. She is content in her domestic role occupying her time with “the aerial creations of the poets” and in the appreciation of nature “the majestic wondrous scenes which surrounded our home”. Victor generally describes Elizabeth as a possession “my Elizabeth”, “she was to be mine only”. She, as a woman, is presented as a companion for a man, not a person in her own right.
Elizabeth is described almost exclusively with hyperbolic religious imagery “fairer than a pictured cherub”, “the saintly soul of Elizabeth shone like a shrine-like dedicated lamp”. Victor also has strange dreams about her “I saw Elizabeth … I imprinted the first kiss on her lips … I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms.” This shows that the relationship between Victor and Elizabeth is abnormal as he also describes her as “cousin”, “more than my sister”, “with a passion that was reverential”. Paul Cantor in “Creature and creator” suggests that Shelley introduces a displaced incest in Victor and Elizabeth’s relationship. This shows that Elizabeth, as a woman, is presented as being an object of sexual desire.
Safie is the other major woman in the novel. She is different to Elizabeth and the other women in the novel as she is presented as seeking to escape a passive existence. Safie runs away from her father in order to marry a husband of her own choosing “she formed her determination.” Safie is discontented with the domestic role, enjoyed by Elizabeth, and independently seeks to escape it “sickened at the prospect of again returning to Asia and being immured within the walls of a harem, allowed only to occupy herself with infantile amusements.” Shelley presents Safie this way to show that women in her society were trapped or “immured” and that the passive role for a woman is neither desirable, nor inevitable and can be “ill-suited to the temper of her soul”.
Safie however, is still part of the feminine ideal through her beauty as her lover, Felix, is attracted by her beauty “when he saw the lovely Safie”, “a countenance of angelic beauty and expression”, “Felix seemed ravished with delight when he saw her”.
Justine and Caroline, are both like Elizabeth in that they are used to describe and criticise the feminine ideal of the time. Caroline is dependant on Victor’s father to “save” her, and her future is only secure when she eventually marries him “He came like a protecting spirit to the poor girl”. Justine’s beauty, even at her trial when she is so close to death, is highlighted as being important “her countenance, always engaging, was rendered by the solemnity of her feelings, exquisitely beautiful”. She is also described as “tranquil” and impotent against the court “I commit my cause to the judges”.
“Frankenstein” has been seen as a feminist novel because of the way Shelley criticises the way women were treated in her society, and while this is not the main focus of the novel, it is without doubt an important aspect of it.
