Week 1: Frankenstein (6)

On The Subject of Justine Moritz

There are very few notable characters in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Charitably, there are four. Two are silent characters with varying levels of importance to the story (Victor’s mother, and the unborn female counterpart to Frankenstein’s monster) and two are speaking characters (Elizabeth Lavenza, and Justine Moritz). All end the story dead, or in the case of the female Frankenstein’s monster, destroyed further. The female characters in Frankenstein seem to exist as ornaments, either used to highlight Victor’s torment, or to demonstrate the horror of the monster.

A microcosm of Shelley’s portrayal of female characters is Justine Moritz. Though her appearance in the story was brief, it was enough to make her my favorite character in the book.

Shelley portrays Justine Moritz as a tragic, angelic figure. Justine’s first appearance in chapter six details her home life and backstory, she was despised by her mother, and blamed for the deaths of her siblings. Justine’s backstory is not only designed to make the audience feel sympathy for her, but it also links her with the idea of false accusation. Her tragedy worsens when she is framed and put on trial for a murder she did not commit.

I haven't consumed much horror fiction in my life. That has less to do with me not liking to be scared and more to do with the fact that I’ve always associated horror stories with frustration. In movies, horror is always accompanied with a formulaic list of “who dies first,” or someone critiquing a protagonist with something cliche like “don’t open that door!” It was during my reading of Frankenstein that I understood the appeal of that frustration. I went into Justine’s trial knowing that she would be condemned for a crime she was innocent of. As the trial went on, I was consumed with dread, hoping that Justine’s virtue would save her, or that a new piece of evidence would be found (surely Justine’s hand must have been smaller than the bruises on William’s throat?), or at least that Victor would tell everyone about the monster, no matter how improbable the story was. 

After being pronounced guilty, harangued into giving a false confession, Justine has the strength and goodness to put aside her own feelings about her death sentence to comfort Elizabeth, who feels guilty about the situation. This was the moment that Justine became my favorite character in the novel. It is also the moment that I think is most emblematic of Shelley’s portrayal of women in Frankenstein. The women of Frankenstein all seem to possess an angelic grace and kindness, they are unrealistically perfect, and that perfection heightens the tragedy of their loss.