ok gah ive wanted to make an analysis post on this for forever but i couldnt find a way to phrase it an a decent way and tbh i dont think i ever will so im js gonna go for it. a thought on how being victims of incest influences victor and elizabeth's language about their non-familial relationships. Hm
i sometimes think about how some people are a little turned off by the idea of morenza because of elizabeth's siblinglike phrasing in these passages
"Alas!” said she. “How shall I ever again believe in human goodness? Justine, whom I loved and esteemed as my sister, how could she put on those smiles of innocence only to betray?"
"Yet you must die; you, my playfellow, my companion, my more than sister. I never can survive so horrible a misfortune.”
and by extension it makes me think of this passage from the annotated 1823 edition wherein victor uses similar phrasing about henry
"...the ardent affection that attached me to my excellent parents, my beloved Elizabeth, and Henry, the brother of my soul, has given an almost religious and sacred feeling..."
i think this vocabulary used to describe relationships that are on their face not familial is actually rather expected given victor and elizabeth's family situation: that is, i think they use such phrasing because they have no other frame of reference through which to experience novel kinds of relationships without shoving them arbitarily into Familial categories. i dont think victor and elizabeth's relationships with henry and justine respectively are siblinglike at all, but rather a reflection on how the incestuous cycle in the frankenstein family has disorted their perception of relationships.
by establishing that any member of the frankenstein family's most essential relationships, especially those which are romantic and sexual, are exclusive to being exchanged within the family itself (obviously victor-elizabeth but also alphonse-caroline) the eldest children are unable to distinguish between platonic feelings, romantic feelings, familial feelings; such that the words "friends" and "family" - and by extension lovers - become basically synonymous phrases that force every kind of relationship victor and elizabeth form into the language of familial relationships. this is evident not only in the above quotes but also in broader terms where he describes his:
i also observe this tendency in the way elizabeth describes justine; notice her exact phrasing in this sentence
"...domestic circle [in which] I include Henry Clerval; for he was constantly with us." (1818)
"...my playfellow, my companion, my more than sister..."
precisely echoes victor's description of their relationship here
"...Elizabeth Lavenza became my playfellow..."
"...no expression could body forth the kind of relation in which she stood to me—my more than sister, since till death she was to be mine only." (1831)
and his description of her relationship with alphonse (!) here
"his niece, his more than daughter, whom he doated on with all that affection which a man feels..."
the relationship between victor-elizabeth/alphonse-elizabeth is in no way similar to elizabeth's relationship with justine, but this familial phrasing is literally the only vocabulary she has to describe such a relationship; it's all she and victor have really ever Known, the narrowness through which they are forced to perceive the world, the orbiting of all their feelings and emotions and experiences around the family, it being made the seat of their entire personhood by caroline and alphonse's parenting. how else would you be able to conceptualize and verbalize feelings of romantic affection if not through the only lens you have ever been permitted to experience it, the box it has been erroneously and grotesquely shoved into - that is, the arranged sibling-cousin marriage.
furthermore ☝️ when victor refers to his "friends" throughout the novel he's basically exclusively talking about his immediate family and clerval because those are the only people hes formed intimate interpersonal connections with:
"Is that all, my dear Henry? How could you suppose that my first thought would not fly towards those dear, dear friends..." (reffering specifically only to alphonse and elizabeth)
"This advice, although good, was totally inapplicable to my case; I should have been the first to hide my grief, and console my friends..." (that is, to elizabeth and alphonse)
"...for I longed to console and sympathise with my loved and sorrowing friends..." (again, only family)
a pernicious aspect of the frankenstein family's abuse is just how intensely insular their elder childrens' social lives are, as victor says going to the university is the first time he'll have to make friends with strangers (he. doesnt <3) (there's something here i think about william comparably being more social than his brothers and sisters, having a little "childhood romance" outside of the family (!!) and growing up without his mother, the architect of the marriage, kinda slipping through the cracks of the cycle and, perhaps in a thematic sense, being killed by the creature because of it, but i havent teased it out yet Hmmmm) which victor sees absolutely no problem with because it was tempered by his parents being extremely indulgent in every other dimension of his life. because of this isolation it is easier for them to groom victor and elizabeth into thinking the brotherly/sisterly platonic affection they have for each other is romantic love; they haven't had the oppurtunity nor liberty to dissasociate the idea of romance of something exclusively experienced within and between family members, and thus the only way they can articulate the nature of their relationships is with this "henry was like my brother" and "justine was like my sister" not because these relationships are in any way familial in nature, but because in their minds to have a friend means to have a sibling means to have a lover. their relationships with the outside world are so limited and minimal and the spectrum of emotions theyve been allowed to feel so strictly ordained by their insular social lives
anyway! Long long explanation of why i think elizabeth and victor refer to their situationships with "sister" and "brother" terms. girl the Insiduous and horrific abuse that conflates family inextricably with every other type of relationship and emotion one person could possibly feel
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