Women In Frankenstein

Backbone Imagine if in this world, women were still considered a part of the minority. In the novel, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, women are forced to live on the outskirts of a male dominated society. Stereotypically speaking, women are seen as possessions rather than human beings, the reader sees this throughout the novel. Female characters like Elizabeth, Justine, Margaret and Agatha are the backbone of the story for all the men, living their fictional lives, not for themselves, but to impact the men’s life.
During the time Shelley was writing Frankenstein, women were considered to be a lower class compared to their men counterparts. They were seen as possessions to men, protected by men, and only useful in order to carry out their duties
“Her brow was clear and ample, her blue eyes cloudless and her lips and the moulding of her face so expressive of sensibility and sweetness that none could behold her without looking on her as of a distinct species, a being heaven-sent, and bearing a celestial stamp in all her features” (p. 34). From beginning to end of this further description of Elizabeth, not once does it provide an example of her attractiveness on the inside, but a clear description of her physical appearance. Once again proving the unreasonable analysis of women as a whole. When in reality, the part of women that matters is the way they are on the inside, without the caretaker, strong yet sweet role women play in everyday lives, there would be hopeless and lost men out
Though without these fictional women, the lives revolving the chaotic life of the men would not have turned. The women may have been victims in this game of craziness, but throughout the whole novel the men depend on the woman's sensibility to get through their plentiful amount of mistakes. This is because Shelley wrote this novel from a female sensible standpoint for the purpose to show how important woman truly are in men’s lives. Women handle emotions more easily because women open up more freely allowing them to understand more and respond to the emotions of others which is usually harder for men because of their natural dominating personality. The theme of Frankenstein could actually come from the fact that, even though men are the main characters, it is full of the mistakes that they make. Shelley is making a feminist point by saying that women are the real backbone of