JoanP, I think you've hit on the issue..that our dissatisfaction with the novel may not be specific to Mary Shelley but to this kind of novel of the romantic period. I didn't pick up on any resentment that Elizabeth felt for Justine. Elizabeth says in her letter to Victor, "I assure you, I love her tenderly." Later she is the one who tries to stand up to the judges on behalf of Justine. I think you're right that the picture found in Justine's pocket is a key. I guess we have to wait until later chapters to find out how it got there! It does seem that Mary Shelley is indicating that Frankenstein's creation was worthy of sympathy in the parts of his life that she has described so far. He sort of speaks like a Shakespearean actor. :-)
Frybabe, Victor says that he did try to talk to the judges about Justine but their cold response convinced him that "thus I might declare myself a madman, but not revoke the sentence..." As you indicate, there seems to be a pattern in these plot points. Victor says that something is so, and that's the way it is.
PatH, I like your label: "Romantic non-logic." On the whole, I think you're right,
Frybabe, about the portrayal of the classes as all goodness on the one side of the upper classes and debasement on the lower classes but there seems to be
some leveling. I recall that in one of Elizabeth's letters to Victor she says that servants in Geneva are not treated as elsewhere..."hence there is less distinction between the several classes of inhabitants; and the lower orders, being neither so poor nor so despised, their manners are more refined and moral."
Harold, maybe you could help us out here with your reading about the society of the time.
Babi, I have to admit that I was feeling as you--tired Victor's dramatic "moaning" about his lot, during this section. When his creation starts to tell his story, the novel picks up for me.
Harold, I do agree with you that the judges were relieved to have a confession. They were not going to look too closely at it.
Comments:
From Chapter 11 – 14; At this point the monster seems to take over the first person telling of his story wandering through high mountain snow and ice, eating berries and whatever he found, living in a hovel that overlooked a peasant hut occupied by an elderly man and a young woman and man. The monster from his hovel seems able to observe and develop an understanding of the presumed peasant’s melancholy life.
Here we see the monster is quite capable of showing human feeling in response to his observation of the peasant’s difficult life. He is able to amass a great amount of intelligence concerning the occupants through his observations. I found it hard to believe that one could amass so much information through such distant observation without being discovered by his subjects. But Mary Shelley seems to get away with her method and we do learn for the first time that the monster has his human side and is quite capable of expressing sympathy and understand for human dilemma.
Yes, Mary Shelley does seem to describe quite a few things that are not in synch with our modern approach. How could that poor family have that additional space where the creation hid and never check it? I wonder if in the writing of the time, readers didn't ask the kinds of questions we ask today? I know when I watch old movies, many seem very unsophisticated (as compared with those today)...even those that have won awards. It might be similar.