I Agree With Most Of This, Except One Major Point: Victor’s Motivation To Find The Secret Of Life Wasn’t

i agree with most of this, except one major point: victor’s motivation to find the secret of life wasn’t spurred by caroline’s death. there’s no evidence to suggest this in-text - it wasn’t about reanimation (this concept was only mentioned once in a throwaway line, and it was not regarding caroline), it was about creating new life. what he wound up doing was not really reversing death, but what was, essentially, childbirth. this is a significant detail when you consider it in the context of victor and elizabeth’s relationship - if victor’s goal was to create life, and he intentionally foregoes women (elizabeth) in this process, then is it that big of a leap to suggest he was doing so so that he wouldn’t have to perform incest?

now if we step back and take a look at the events before the creature’s creation, i really do think they saw each other as siblings - considering the context of elizabeth being adopted into the frankenstein family, elizabeth and victor referring to each other as cousins, and being in an arranged marriage to victor (both normal things in higher society but strange when paired together), and that caroline selects elizabeth specifically because she had a background similar to her own, a daughter that would be like her. then she calls elizabeth her favorite, and rears her and victor under the expectation that they are to be wed when they are older. from the age of six, victor and elizabeth, notably TOGETHER, were helping raise ernest (and later william) while both caroline and alphonse were still in the picture, described as his “constant nurses”... and if i remember correctly, at this point alphonse had retired after ernest’s birth specifically to care for his children, yet elizabeth and victor are still raising their younger siblings, treating ernest as if he were their child... and then caroline, as her literal dying wish, has elizabeth promise to marry her son and take her place in the family and help raise her other children.

it’s as if caroline grooms elizabeth into being this second version of her, which makes her dictating victor and elizabeth’s marriage to each other all the more horrible.

there’s several moments that make it clear that elizabeth and victor view each other as family, or at the very least, are romantically disinterested in each other. elizabeth bringing up in letters how she and victor as a pair is strange, giving victor several outs to their marriage, elizabeth literally hitting the nail on the head when suggesting victor considers himself honor-bound to fulfill his parent’s wishes, their hesitance on their wedding day, elizabeth referring to william (and by extension, ernest and victor) as a brother during justine’s trial, victor’s dream where he’s kissing elizabeth and then she literally turns into his mother in his arms, etc.

and before all that - there’s this constant, excessive dependence on victor for emotional support, and it started in childhood, from which he was his parents “plaything” and their “idol” and where, growing up, “[caroline’s] firmest hopes of future happiness were placed on the prospect of [elizabeth and victor’s] union” and, after her death, “this expectation [would be] the consolation of [his] father.” 

so now we have victor, who his parents have been emotionally dependent on all his life, who is expected to carry on his family’s legacy, who is in an arranged marriage he doesn’t want, with someone who is his cousin/sister/acting as his mother stand-in. under all this expectation, this marriage he has literally been raised with, he doesn’t try to subvert it entirely, no, he’s been told that his family’s happiness depends on this marriage! but he does the best he could in the situation he’s been given, dodging an act of incest by performing the act of creating life by himself, by making the creature.

Let's talk about Victor...

But not in the usual way.

Warnings: Will contain some talk of Grooming and incest.

And warnings for some large spoilers for the Frankenstein novel. If you're still reading it, I do suggest not reading this post.

We discuss a lot, Victor's faults, what he could have done better and done different, ect. We are not going to be discussing that for this, for now we are putting those discussions and debates aside.

There is one large, hmm, complaint or judgement perhaps, that's always not quite sat right with me. And that's, his relationship with Elizabeth, and how it's treated as his fault. And I'm not talking about how he treats her, or what happens to Elizabeth or anything like that. I'm talking about how it's often treated like the relationship itself is his fault and he's a disgusting pig for it. When honestly...I feel he's a victim of it as well.

Now, of course, this is my interpretation of things. I know not everyone agrees or will agree with it, which is perfectly fine. This is my interpretation of something in a story that is meant to have different interpretations. This is just something I feel and I feel like is not often discussed. In fact I haven't even seen it discussed.

So, here we go.

I feel like both Victor and Elizabeth are victims and didn't really have a choice in the matter of the relationship. Yes, by the times, Victor has an advantage of being a man and Elizabeth has to be a wife and be dependent on him, I'm not saying that isn't true.

I'm talking about his mother. Caroline. I feel, in pointing the finger at Victor for the relationship with Elizabeth, his mother is often forgotten. His mother, whether you're doing the version where Elizabeth is his cousin or adopted sister, basically took Elizabeth in, and immediately decides she'd be the perfect match for her boy.

And told them that. Constantly. As they were growing up. As they were learning.

I do believe, Victor and Elizabeth loved each other, as best friends, as siblings. I don't think they were ever really allowed to think of it as anything other then romantic love though. And so that's how they accepted it. It's how his, and honestly their, mother saw it.

And then to make it worse. Caroline's death. His mother, who, when you look into the novel, really, who's death really begins Victor's physiological breakdown. What leads him to want to, really, defeat and overcome death.

On her deathbed. Her dying wish, she grabs their hands and tells Victor and Elizabeth it is her dying wish to see them wed. That she's always thought this, thought they were perfect together, and always wanted this. And please, I ask to really think on this, after all mentioned above.

We talk about when his father asks him, "Maybe you don't want to marry Elizabeth, maybe you've come to see her as a sister." And he said yes, he loves her and still wants to marry her.

Y'all. Maybe this is just my interpretation, but he had never been given a choice to think anything otherwise. His mother had never allowed anything else, had constantly shoved into their heads their relationship would be/was romantic. To the point they believed it.

Anything they felt towards each other, any affection, any love, was and had to be romantic.

After all, it was their mother, who raised them, put this into their heads as children and it was her dying wish for them to be married, so what else could it be?

Yes, it gets messy when you have to take in the time of things. That it is true, for the time, you were lucky to even just like the person you were to marry. Maybe that's what Caroline saw, saw two people that could marry, and the relationship wouldn't be horrible. But even if that was her reasoning, I don't think it makes her innocent. And I do think she greatly screwed both Elizabeth and Victor up.

Their relationship has then been put through much in adaptions. Victor gets put as a creep, sometimes outright predator to Elizabeth. The part connecting them as cousins or adoptive siblings gets cut out and they get put as the romantic couple.

Hell, look at Bride of Frankenstein. She's the beautiful, clearly all is good and Christian, humane option Victor Henry (because for some reason their names were switched) turns his back on. Which is wrong and evil and against God. And eventually, he comes back to, and they get to escape the tower, run off as the tower explores with the Monster, the Bride, and Dr. Pretorius in it. And have a happy ending. They're the romantic couple you're supposed to cheer for, as these movies set things up.

We have been made to veiw them, in many different ways. And sometimes I feel that affects how we then veiw them when looking at the novel. That's just some of the adaptions.

I do, again, think they loved each other. As best friends, as siblings.

Elizabeth deserved better. By her family, by, though I adore him, Adam himself who killed her in revenge for Victor destroying the to-be-reanimated body of his potential mate who may or may not have even liked him. By the time itself, she was born in. She got little time, and deserved better.

Victor cared for her, loved her as a sibling. If he did love anyone romantically in the novel, I do agree with, he romantically loved Henry. But believed he did love Elizabeth, and of course had to repress anything towards another man. But, that takes us on a whole other thing that can be discussed another time.

Thank you for reading all of this, my reasoning, my rambles. Again, my interpretation, but something I feel is not often talked about. In the aspect of Victor's and Elizabeth's relationship, how it came to be, how they thought of each other, I do believe, they were both victims.