Elizabeth comes into Victor’s life at a
young age, when his parents adopt her from a poor family they meet in Italy.
The relationship between Victor and his cousin Elizabeth begins on a
strange note, with Victor's mother presenting her to him as "a pretty
present"(34). Their relationship begins to unfold as a mildly incestuous
one, with Victor explaining that he took his mother's words to heart and saw
Elizabeth as "a possession" and a "more than sister"(34).
This theme carries throughout his childhood; as they grow up together, he
describes her presence as that of a "living spirit of love to soften and
attract"(37). She is clearly more than just a dear sister, and Victor
views her with more devotion than most siblings. His mother is less than discouraging
of this relationship, and even on her deathbed she joins their hands together
and proclaims that her “firmest hopes of future happiness were placed on the
prospect of your union”(42-43). Even buried under the grief of losing his
beloved mother, he remembers that Elizabeth was never “so enchanting as at this
time”(44). Similarly, the relationship between Victor’s father and his wife,
Caroline, has incestuous beginnings. When they first meet, he originally sees
her as a daughter figure to nurture and serves as a “protecting spirit”(30) to
her, but two years after coming to her rescue, he marries her, despite a
“considerable difference in age”(31). These two incestuous relationships in
such close proximity to each other give an interesting picture of the Frankenstein
clan as a very intimate group. Our understanding of the relationship between
Victor and Elizabeth progresses even further when Victor has given life to his
monster; in a dream, he kisses Elizabeth, who then morphs into the corpse of
his dead mother, covered in “grave-worms”(59). This scene more clearly states a
view on the recurring themes of incest: that a sexual relationship between Elizabeth
and Victor is akin to one between Victor and his mother, and that the result of relationships such as these will result in death.
That is an interesting conclusion to make. I also thought the borderline incestuous relationships in this novel were gross, but because incest was not viewed with such negativity as modern day society does, I passed it over. I did not consider that Mary Shelley was making a statement about incest.
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