every one else believes in her guilt
Although Victor's jumping to conclusions about the guilt of his Creature
indicates how widespread is the temptation to judge without evidence, the
fact that Justine has been convicted in the popular mind before her trial
even starts introduces a sinister element to the social dimensions of the
novel. The class issues that will arise in the trial are highly
complicated. The small detail of how the Frankenstein family was
circumvented by its own servants, who were the ones to appeal to the
magistrates (see 1.6.10), is telling in
its representation of how widespread has been the process of scapegoating
that has eventuated in Justine's arrest. This detail may also suggest that
the Frankenstein family has itself attempted to keep faith with Justine
and thus, in some sense, may serve to mitigate the reader's own temptation
to rush to judgment over the family's complicity in an exercise
of injustice.
