Elizabeth as a Typical Victorian Woman in FrankensteinElizabeth is an important character in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. She is also the most important person in Victor's life for several reasons. Not only is she beautiful beyond belief, but she is also submissive and gentle. Elizabeth knows her role in the household and she fulfills her duties without hesitation or complaint. Always worried about Victor, she is ready to do anything to ensure his happiness. Elizabeth is Victor's most prized possession, something he must value and protect above all else. She is his faithful love. Elizabeth's many qualities classify her as a typical woman of 19th-century Victorian England. Submission is one of the main characteristics of Victorian English women. They were “taught to be submissive and manipulative” (Kanner 305). Qualities of “selflessness, patience, and outward obedience” were also “required” in women (Prior 96). In contrast to the "masculine energy" of men, women were thought to possess a "feminine passivity" that made them incapable of actively venturing out into the world with curiosity (Kanner 208). It is this false belief on the part of men, not the “feminine passivity” of women, that has kept women from venturing out into the world and confined them to the home. Such confinement is evident in the following woman's diary: During all this time my Lord was in London where he had all and immense recourse to him. He went abroad a lot to Cocking, bowling, plays and horse racing. . . I stayed in the countryside often with a sad and heavy heart. . . so, as I can truly say, I am an owl in the desert. (Before 200) Similarly, in Frankenstein, while young Victor Frankenstein and his friend Henry Clerv...... middle of paper...... Victor as his. Elizabeth is servile, sentimental, nurturing, sacrificial and beautiful. She has all the typically feminine characteristics. Thus, through images of Elizabeth, Mary Shelley clearly and accurately depicts attitudes towards Victorian women in 19th century England. Elizabeth lives and dies, the role that Shelley and company had written for her and her real sisters. Works Cited Kanner, Barbara, ed. The Women of England: From Anglo-Saxon Times to the Present. Hamden: Archon Books, 1979. Prior, Mary, ed. Women in English Society, 1500-1900. New York: Methuen, 1985. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ed. Johanna M. Smith. Boston: Bedford Books, 1992. Wollstonecraft, Mary. A defense of women's rights: an authoritative text, background, criticism. Ed. Carol H. Poston. New York: W. W. Norton, 1975.