Treatment Of Women In Frankenstein Essay

Graceful, beautiful, loving, nurturing, subdued, diminished, female. All of these adjectives and more can be applied to some of the more overlooked characters of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. The central conflict between Victor Frankenstein and his Creature casts a shadow over other historical and cultural issues at work in the novel particularly that of the treatment of women. Mary Shelly brilliantly includes an examination of their condition through four women that suffer and, in some cases, break free from their oppressive mold imposed on them by their patriarch society regardless of their differences in socio-economic status. The four characters of Justine, Elizabeth, Agatha, and Safie represent four different versions and treatment of women

In this opposing view of separate male and female roles, the De Lacey family is “based on justice, equality, and mutual affection” in which “all work is shared equally in an atmosphere of rational companionship, mutual concern, and love” (Mellor p. 358). Agatha De Lacey, the sole female occupant of the De Lacey household alongside her brother Felix and Father, then is treated lovingly and with respect, and she equally shares in the work to be done in the home, garden, as well as helping Felix as needed in tending to the wood supplies, rather than being confined to the home and

After her father’s betrayal of Felix and hastily departure, Safie alone devises a plan to travel from Italy to Germany where she has discovered he and his family now resides in exile in order to join them as well as to escape the oppression that faces her in her native land. Though she travels in the company of an attendant, she is soon left alone “unacquainted with the language of the country, and utterly ignorant of the customs of the world” but manages to overcome this obstacle too and arrive safely at the De Lacey’s cottage; A stark contrast to the abilities of Elizabeth whose freedom and journeying depends on the allowance of Victor or his father (Shelley p. 80).

Through these four women, Mary Shelley includes an examination on the treatment of women at the time. Justine is condemned to death because her male prosecutors cannot attest to her or Elizabeth’s feminine testimonies. Elizabeth is treated well but as a doll confined to her playhouse that she may not leave without male approval or supervision. On the other hand, Agatha is respected and treated no differently than her brother Felix within the De Lacey household, and Safie breaks free of the mold completely in taking charge of her own future by journeying to the cottage by her own