Frankenstein Character Analysis Essay

Throughout the novel of Frankenstein Mary Shelley places great emphasis on her character’s physical traits. She uses these descriptions to represent not just their personality but the way that Victor sees them. Their physical representations also play into the important subtext of how they make victor feel and the voids that he is trying to fill. Finally, those descriptions help tie into the important themes and motifs of the book that were staples of the romantic era.

A prime example of this is when Victor describes professor M. Waldman. “He appeared about fifty years of age, but with an aspect expressive of the greatest benevolence; a few gray hairs covered his temples, but those at the back of his head were nearly black. His person was

Victor initially shows his feeling towards Elizabeth through the way that he physically describes and idealizes her. He describes her hazel eyes as lively as a bird yet attractively soft and her figure light and airy (30). Later, in the novel when he sees her after many years he gives a new physical description of her and the women she had become. “An open and capacious forehead gave indications of a good understanding, joined to great frankness of disposition. Her eyes were hazel, and expressive of mildness, now though recent affliction allied to sadness.” (85). In these two different descriptions of Elizabeth we can see the way in which Victor idealizes Elizabeth and paints her to himself and the audience as the perfect woman. Elizabeth is the perfect mix of docile yet independent and enduring yet fragile. The way Shelly describes her in such contradictory terms is commentary on the romantic idealization of a women. Elizabeth is meant to fill the role of not just mother but also wife, friend, sister, and caretaker. He also sees her as a way to fill the maternal void left by his mother. Just like with the creature and Waldman, Victor uses Elizabeth to fill another of the voids in his life. He is eager to have Elizabeth nurture and indulge him the way his mother always did as well as the way she took care of all of the domestic aspects of his