Elizabeth: The Last Hope

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Early in Frankenstein, Shelley characterizes Elizabeth as the "living spirit of love" among the Frankenstein family (Shelley 20).  She certainly proves the characterization to be accurate as the novel progresses and she embodies love within the family during troubling times like Caroline's sickness and Victor's depression.  However, toward the end of the novel, Elizabeth displays herself to represent much more to Victor and his remaining family; she represents hope.  As long as Elizabeth lives, Victor has some hope for a joyful, somewhat normal life with a woman he loves dearly.  Victor's union with Elizabeth gives Alphonse Frankenstein hope for the future and for happier times to come.  Quite literally, all hope for happiness within the Frankenstein clan emanates from Elizabeth, so her death comes as a devastating, even fatal, blow.  After Elizabeth dies, Victor recounts how, having lost all hope for happiness, his father "was unable to rise from his bed, and in a few days he died in my arms," (Shelley 147).  Victor too takes the agonizing loss of his beloved Elizabeth harshly.  Without his wife, Victor laments, "I lost sensation and chains and darkness were the only objects that pressed upon me," (Shelley 147).  Having lost touch with all positive sentiments, Victor lives out the rest of his days fueled solely by rage.  In removing all hope for happiness from Frankenstein and his family, Elizabeth's death removes all possibility of a positive conclusion and sets the stage for Frankenstein's tragic close comprised of Victor's death and the creature's righteous suicide.