Beyonce once pondered aloud what the driving force of the world was. The resounding answer was “girls”. Women serve as the backbone of existence, from creating life to caring for life. Unfortunately, while women can do many other things than care, the characters Elizabeth from Shelley’s Frankenstein and Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet seem to only do those two things. They seem to exist only to aid the male characters in their story and their tragic ends serve as stimulus for the downfall of the main male characters.
Elizabeth is like a golden retriever puppy: they both are obedient, naïve, young, and adorable. Regrettably, Elizabeth can be considered as less than a dog in which her “owner”: “[I] looked upon her as mine” (Shelley 21). Victor’s thoughts about Elizabeth as nothing more than an object are harmful and undermine her entire gender. His mistreatment of Elizabeth explains his character quite well: he has no consideration for anyone other than himself, and doesn’t consider the danger he has put…show more content… He fatally misinterprets the creature’s warning: “ I thought again of his words--"*I will be with you on your wedding-night*."... In that hour I should die and at once satisfy and extinguish his malice...yet when I thought of my beloved Elizabeth, of her tears and endless sorrow, when she should find her lover so barbarously snatched from her, tears, the first I had shed for many months, streamed from my eyes, and I resolved not to fall before my enemy without a bitter struggle” (Shelley 147). Victor believes the creature is coming straight to attack him, and does not realize that the creature is coming after his friends. While Victor acts so dreadfully towards Elizabeth, she seems to still care about him. She constantly worries whether or not he is well, and if he loves her, when he is indifferent and frigid towards her. He keeps abandoning her to go off to foreign places, and she allows this to occur. Elizabeth’s