our placid home, and our contented hearts
Elizabeth's conformity to her female lot, staying in Geneva rather than
traveling to Ingolstadt to care for Victor, spreading contentment around
her, being content herself with "trifling occupations," has been a source
of irritation to many critics who, from this and similar evidence, see the
novel as enforcing a mindless domesticity as the only alternative to the
overreaching of the male protagonists. Yet, to take this passage at face
value as the expression not of Elizabeth but of Mary Shelley, is not
really defensible as a critical reading. Elizabeth's blandness is an
aspect of her character. Her satisfaction with, broadly speaking, the
beautiful is certainly an aspect of the female role in this period, but in
no way does her author resemble her in this narrow predeliction. Nor does
the novel unquestionably reinforce it. After all, the first direct view we
as readers have had of this serene landscape was as a violent thunderstorm
burst from over the Jura mountains (1.1.9). When in the second volume Victor
enters into, instead of gazing upon, this world of "snow-clad mountains,"
it will be to confront the sublime directly.
- Characters:
- Critical Approaches:
- Themes:
