Frankenstein: All Female Characters Conform to Societal Expectations
Society has never yet treated women right. Throughout time expectations, customs
and even laws have limited women to seemingly second-class citizens as a result of
their sex. ‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley was written in the beginnings of the modern
era, the age of enlightenment. Monarchies across Europe faced reform or
destruction as the world was now owned by the common man. Many new political
and social schools of thinking began to develop but the key one for this essay is
feminism. Influenced by her late mother Mary Wollstonecraft’s ‘birth of feminism’ and
her father’s thoughts on a fair just system for all, is it really a surprise Shelley’s
writing contains elements that evaluate the role of women from a perspective of
fairness? Much like her parents, Shelley takes her work to analyse and comment on
the society she wakes up in everyday and so in a sense of reality and critique she
includes references to the relationship between society and women. As a result, I
believe that all the female character’s in Frankenstein do conform in some way to the
societal expectations of women in the late 18th and early 19th century.
Firstly, Margaret Saville is seen as quite an unimportant character in ‘Frankenstein,’
mainly due to the fact she is never directly seen, nor heard, throughout the story.
The opening of the novel, which is written in epistolary form, very much begins to
show hints that the female characters of Frankenstein conform to the societal
expectations of women. Mrs Saville is solely given meaning and a place in the story
because of her brother Robert Walton and to begin with, in Letter One, she is
addressed in terms of her married name ‘Mrs Saville’ - the wife of Mr Saville. This
idea of the women being a part of their associated patriarch is prevalent throughout
Frankenstein and almost displays women as unimportant to society, a possible
hidden critique issued by Mary Shelley who herself felt in the first publication of ‘The
Modern Prometheus’ it was necessary to publish her work anonymously and hint that
it was her husband’s penmanship in order to not discourage readers. Shelley’s
choice of using epistolary form at the start of the novel begins to show the societal
moulds of passivity and compassion in Mrs Saville’s role as the voiceless recipient of
Walton’s letters. The very fact Mrs Saville does not have a direct voice echoes the
accepted irrelevance of women in the society of the time. Mrs Saville’s voice is heard
but from the secondary source of her brother’s writings and is usually used to
highlight his masculinity and bravery creating an almost ironic manipulation of true
compassion; “You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied
the…enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.” Margaret is
deprived of voicing her own feelings and instead, they are warped (as shown by the
directly addressed imperative) and used to embellish male characteristics, again
showing women as extensions of men and how Mrs Saville conforms to the societal
expectations of women.
Furthermore, Caroline Beaufort who, despite being seen as one of the more
independent and stronger women of the story still demonstrates some tropes that
show conformity with societal expectations. For example, Caroline is portrayed as a
femme fatale, a prominent feature of the gothic genre invented by Horace Walpole
and seen in other similar works such as ‘Dracula’; “He came like a protecting spirit to
the poor girl, who committed herself to his care…Caroline became his wife.”
Alphonse is seen as a knight in shining armour through the simile in Victor’s
retrospective narrative. He rescues the damsel in distress from destitution and in a
way, I believe Alphonse does this with good, just intentions. However, the way Victor
describes his father in the situation as almost an omnibenevolent presence glorifies
Society has never yet treated women right. Throughout time expectations, customs
and even laws have limited women to seemingly second-class citizens as a result of
their sex. ‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley was written in the beginnings of the modern
era, the age of enlightenment. Monarchies across Europe faced reform or
destruction as the world was now owned by the common man. Many new political
and social schools of thinking began to develop but the key one for this essay is
feminism. Influenced by her late mother Mary Wollstonecraft’s ‘birth of feminism’ and
her father’s thoughts on a fair just system for all, is it really a surprise Shelley’s
writing contains elements that evaluate the role of women from a perspective of
fairness? Much like her parents, Shelley takes her work to analyse and comment on
the society she wakes up in everyday and so in a sense of reality and critique she
includes references to the relationship between society and women. As a result, I
believe that all the female character’s in Frankenstein do conform in some way to the
societal expectations of women in the late 18th and early 19th century.
Firstly, Margaret Saville is seen as quite an unimportant character in ‘Frankenstein,’
mainly due to the fact she is never directly seen, nor heard, throughout the story.
The opening of the novel, which is written in epistolary form, very much begins to
show hints that the female characters of Frankenstein conform to the societal
expectations of women. Mrs Saville is solely given meaning and a place in the story
because of her brother Robert Walton and to begin with, in Letter One, she is
addressed in terms of her married name ‘Mrs Saville’ - the wife of Mr Saville. This
idea of the women being a part of their associated patriarch is prevalent throughout
Frankenstein and almost displays women as unimportant to society, a possible
hidden critique issued by Mary Shelley who herself felt in the first publication of ‘The
Modern Prometheus’ it was necessary to publish her work anonymously and hint that
it was her husband’s penmanship in order to not discourage readers. Shelley’s
choice of using epistolary form at the start of the novel begins to show the societal
moulds of passivity and compassion in Mrs Saville’s role as the voiceless recipient of
Walton’s letters. The very fact Mrs Saville does not have a direct voice echoes the
accepted irrelevance of women in the society of the time. Mrs Saville’s voice is heard
but from the secondary source of her brother’s writings and is usually used to
highlight his masculinity and bravery creating an almost ironic manipulation of true
compassion; “You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied
the…enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.” Margaret is
deprived of voicing her own feelings and instead, they are warped (as shown by the
directly addressed imperative) and used to embellish male characteristics, again
showing women as extensions of men and how Mrs Saville conforms to the societal
expectations of women.
Furthermore, Caroline Beaufort who, despite being seen as one of the more
independent and stronger women of the story still demonstrates some tropes that
show conformity with societal expectations. For example, Caroline is portrayed as a
femme fatale, a prominent feature of the gothic genre invented by Horace Walpole
and seen in other similar works such as ‘Dracula’; “He came like a protecting spirit to
the poor girl, who committed herself to his care…Caroline became his wife.”
Alphonse is seen as a knight in shining armour through the simile in Victor’s
retrospective narrative. He rescues the damsel in distress from destitution and in a
way, I believe Alphonse does this with good, just intentions. However, the way Victor
describes his father in the situation as almost an omnibenevolent presence glorifies
