By Kathryn Neves
When Frankenstein was first published in 1818, it emerged into a literary world dominated by powerful men. Women writers were few and far between, and the Romantic Era of literature was a very masculine field. Astonishing, then, that this new novel—which is now considered a paragon of the movement—was written by an eighteen-year-old girl.
It’s Mary Shelley’s perspective as a woman which shaped Frankenstein into such a rich, complex story. Frankenstein is a tale centered around creation and its aftereffects; both of which are deeply tied to womanhood. In her novel Shelley depicts what we might call an un-birth: a creation without a mother. This lack of motherhood informs and shapes the rest of the narrative. She details the ways that a purely masculine form of creation undercuts humanity’s most important traits; and, through this unnatural act, explores the power that women—and their absence—can have on a life. Through the three most significant female characters in the text, Shelley shows us the vitality of women’s contributions to human life—both in its creation and its cultivation, development, and care. Without a feminine influence, she argues, man is bereft of what makes us human.
The first woman we see in Frankenstein is the protagonist’s mother: Caroline Beaufort Frankenstein. To her son, Victor, she exemplifies the classic archetype of motherhood: a being of pure selflessness, motivated by a deep sense of care and duty toward her family and community. Victor describes his mother’s demeanor as “soft and benevolent” (Shelley 28), driven by an innate sense of compassion and empathy—classically considered “feminine” traits. He goes on to detail her work as a carer of the sick and oppressed: “This, to my mother, was more than a duty; it was a necessity, a passion… for her to act in her turn the guardian angel to the afflicted” (29). It is this sense of duty and care that leads her to adopt Elizabeth, who will someday become Victor’s “more than sister”; it is this sense of duty, too, that leads her to nurse Elizabeth back to health when she contracts scarlet fever—a choice that leads to Caroline contracting the disease herself, and eventually dying when Victor is only seventeen. “On her death-bed the fortitude and benignity of this best of women did not desert her” (38). This “best of women” is the idealized archetype of femininity and motherhood for Victor: her sacrifice, selflessness, and compassion become deeply associated with the female form, both in Victor’s mind and in Shelley’s text.
It is her absence, then, that forms Victor into the man he becomes. In losing his mother so early, he loses her influence; the example of selflessness and compassion is overshadowed by Victor’s scientific ambitions. Without the strength of her influence, Victor forgets what it is to care for the world outside himself; he spends his time holed up in his apartment, working on his grotesque creation, and refuses to engage with others. He becomes entirely centered on himself and his creation. He has lost, in short, the traits that Shelley associates with motherhood—which results in his creation and mistreatment of the Creature.
Another key woman in Victor Frankenstein’s life is Elizabeth Lavenze—his adopted sister and eventually his wife. “My more than sister—the beautiful and adored companion of all my occupations and my pleasures” (30). More than any other woman in the novel, perhaps, Elizabeth exemplifies the antiquated vision of what women are meant to be. She represents companionship; she is, to Victor, what might best be called a “helpmeet.” She exists in the narrative to provide Victor companionship, comfort, and the Romantic ideal of beauty. And, like most men of the time, Victor sees her as a possession: “I… looked upon Elizabeth as mine—mine to protect, love, and cherish… my more than sister, since till death she was to be mine only” (31). This possession gives him a sense of power, and gives him an ideal to fight (and live) for.
Although this view of womanhood is antiquated and stereotypical, in Shelley’s novel this position holds a subtle kind of power. She has a profound influence over him. It is through her classically feminine traits—her softness, her constancy, her beauty—that she brings Victor joy. Her very essence sustains him. “She was the living spirit of love to soften and attract: I might have become sullen in my study, rough through the ardour of my nature, but that she was there to subdue me to a semblance of her own gentleness” (33). She represents joy; an ideal that gives Victor’s life meaning, beauty, and light. Conversely, her absence holds power over him as well. Without Elizabeth as his companion, friend, and lover, Victor loses all sense of softness and joy. His days are miserable, and he is often sickly and unwell. Elizabeth’s presence is a powerful sustaining force that allows Victor to live his life and pursue his ambitions. It is worth noting that while Elizabeth is alive, Victor occasionally subdues his hatred for the Creature; he softens, and sometimes even shows pity and compassion. It is only after Eliabeth’s death that Victor loses all sense of kindness. When she is gone, Victor is driven only by hatred, vengeance, and bloodlust for his own creation.
The idea of a feminine companion as a vital part of a man’s life is especially clear in the Creature’s solitude. He has no companion; no fellow creature to soften him, to bring him any beauty or joy. When the Creature takes the locket from William’s body, he sees the portrait of Victor’s mother: “For a few moments I gazed with delight on her… but presently my rage returned: I remembered that I was for ever deprived of the delights that such beautiful creatures could bestow” (127). The lack of a compassionate and softening female influence, Shelley argues, is a driving factor in the Creature’s violence and rage. “Everywhere I see bliss,” the creature despairs, “from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend” (89). It is with this in mind that the Creature makes his most desperate demand: Victor must make him a wife. The Creature needs a companion in his solitude, to bring him some semblance of the joy and beauty he sees in the rest of humanity.
Victor, then, begins another un-birth—creating the third significant woman of the narrative: the Creature’s wife. In no uncertain terms, the Creature makes it clear that his existence depends upon a woman’s influence: “You must create a female for me, with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being” (129). Ultimately, however, Victor’s revulsion and fear prevail. He fears not only the female’s possible effect on the Creature, but also its potential for motherhood. A powerful thing, motherhood. What if, he wonders, the female creature spawns a new generation of monsters? What if the power of creation, so inherent in the female form, begets more terror and violence? This new female creature, then, is not only a counterpart to Elizabeth, the archetypal companion, but to Caroline—the archetypal Mother. Victor cannot allow the power of a feminine influence on the Creature. “Trembling with passion, [I] tore to pieces the thing on which I was engaged. The wretch saw me destroy the creature on whose future existence he depended for happiness, and, with a howl of devilish despair and revenge, withdrew” (148).
It is this act of destruction—and this absence of a woman—that sets the rest of the story on its course. The Creature vows vengeance on Victor, and ultimately reciprocates; he destroys Victor’s own companion and wife, Elizabeth. It is Elizabeth’s death that removes any last vestige of compassion and softness from Victor’s person. And it is this lack of compassion that ultimately leads to Victor’s futile chase of the monster, and his death upon the icy seas.
For both the Creature and for Victor, womanhood and motherhood are natural and necessary elements of human life. Like Adam, to whom the Creature is so often compared, these men must have their mates. And for both Victor and the Creature, motherhood—and its absence—shape the course of their miserable lives. The early influence of his mother, and her early death, set Victor on his path; the influence of Elizabeth is what sustains him. The absence of female influence and example hardens and destroys Victor, and keeps the Creature from ever experiencing real personhood. These (admittedly stereotypical) views of womanhood are written as powerful influences on the men in the novel; their presence and absence shape the story in ways that often go unexplored in works written by men. It is no wonder that the Creature wants a woman in his life; man, Mary Shelley tells us, cannot fully access their own humanity without woman.
