Superficial Love: Examining Elizabeth, Victor’s Favorite Lamp

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the character of Elizabeth is said to be Victor’s cousin, sister and bride. But is she anything more than an object to serve Victor’s needs and desires? Or is she simply a “shrine-dedicated lamp,” existing solely as a decoration to furnish Victor’s love life?

In the novel, the character of Elizabeth is consistently treated as an object, and is expected to be a figure of perfection and femininity, with no concern for her personal feelings. In a letter to Victor, Victor’s father writes: 

I confess, my son, that I have always looked forward to your marriage with our dear Elizabeth as the tie of our domestic comfort and the stay of my declining years. You were attached to each other from your earliest infancy; you studied together, and appeared, in dispositions and tastes, entirely suited to one another. But so blind is the experience of man that what I conceived to be the best assistants to my plan may have entirely destroyed it. You, perhaps, regard her as your sister, without any wish that she might become your wife. 

Victor replies that his father need not worry, and that Elizabeth excites “his warmest admiration and affection.” The tone implies that Victor “admires” Elizabeth in the same way one might “admire” a trophy or favorite trinket. He does not mention any qualities of her, suggesting that his “affection,” as he states, is merely skin-deep. Victor seems to be entirely willing and in fact excited by the prospect of a union between Elizabeth and himself, likely as a way to cement her as his own. This objectification is seen clearly throughout Frankenstein, with Victor stating, “The saintly soul of Elizabeth shone like a shrine-dedicated lamp in our peaceful home. Her sympathy was ours; her smile, her soft voice, the sweet glance of her celestial eyes, were ever there to bless and animate us,” comparing her to an inanimate piece of furniture. Elizabeth is frequently referred to as a “beautiful creature,” and Victor refers to after her death as “the purest creature of earth.” Talking about Elizabeth as if she is a pretty animal brings to light the pet-like relationship between her and Victor, and is a direct commentary about the role of women in society.

Elizabeth’s case is just one of the many instances of ownership in the novel. The parallels between her relationship with Victor and the creation of another monster are eerily clear, and Victor plays a part in the creation of both. However– Victor is content in proceeding with the marriage arrangements set up by his parents, whereas he abhors his second creation, saying that it “might become ten thousand times more malignant than her mate and delight, for its own sake, in murder and wretchedness.” He thinks of his creations as inhuman and incapable of love, and is unable to be convinced otherwise. The Creature asks him, “Shall each man… find a wife for his bosom, and each beast have his mate, and I be alone? I had feelings of affection, and they were requited by detestation and scorn,” but Victor refuses to acknowledge that the creature was just deprived of its only source of happiness and anticipation. Like Victor, the creature desires love, yearning for an Elizabeth of its own. All it knows is the possessive marriage in the society around him, which Shelly uses to critique the Romantic Era’s patriarchal marriage structure.

Victor’s relationship with Elizabeth is not the only problematic relationship of his in the novel. Far from it. Victor is very possessive, even around his friend and companion Clerval, calling him, “my friend, my benefactor,” saying that as a friend, his duty is to benefit Victor in some way. The reverse can be found in Victor’s relationship with R. Walton, where, in the beginning of the story, Walton emphasizes that he wants a friend, “possessed of a cultivated as well as of a capacious mind, whose tastes are like my own, to approve or amend my plans.” In short, he desires a loyal companion nothing short of a henchman, who will agree with and support him in all his earthly endeavors, a level of blind loyalty more of the disposition of a dog than a human. And then, along came Victor, half dead on an ice floe, to be rescued by R. Walton and his crew, putting Victor’s life in debt to the actions of Walton, and, in Walton’s view, obligated to his pleasure. Interestingly, Victor makes no comment about this parallel, referring to Walton as his friend and graciously accepting his company, much in the way of Elizabeth appearing complacent throughout the novel. Victor’s apparent love of Elizabeth is superficial, an attachment more akin to the ownership of a pet than a marriage. To Victor, Elizabeth is a figure of beauty and docility, without regard to her feelings, in a similar manner to his selfish treatment of his own friend Clerval. He displays Elizabeth as a trophy, as a decoration, which Mary Shelley uses to illuminate the role of women in Romantic society. Frankenstein warns us that often underneath declarations of everlasting love and admiration, controlling possessiveness lies beneath.