#and... maybe elizabeth's willingness to accept if victor has been unfaithful is inspired by her own marriage

[yallemagne]

Elizabeth's letter... aehhhh.

The meaning is like one of two options. Not really, because for all I know, Shelley intended for us to see Victor and Elizabeth as a blissful and healthy relationship simply occurring at the wrong time. Or any other possibility. Why else would a later version of Frankenstein go with a less blood-related but not necessarily less incestuous setup for their pairing? To make it more palatable somehow.

That aside, I have two readings for Elizabeth's letter: she is trying to grant herself an out by seeing if Victor shares her familial feelings rather than having romantic inclinations towards her, or Papa Frankenstein forced her to write this letter so as to guilt Victor into making a decision (most likely the decision to marry).

The first one is self-explanatory. Even if she says she does love him and wants to be married if it is his choice, it feels like that is just a measure she's taken to not offend Victor if he does want to marry or if he, at the very least, takes solace in being desired by someone. Even if he doesn't want her, his ego could be wounded if she confessed to not wanting him either, which, we can't have that! She can't outright break off the engagement herself, but she can test the waters and hope that Victor sees her as a sister and that she can likewise find someone else as she assumes he may have.

The second is more convoluted, but holy shit her letter is verbatim what Alphonse said to Victor before. Either she's been given a script, Alphonse was originally voicing concerns that Elizabeth voiced to him (you'd think he'd mention tho), or Shelley didn't care to give Elizabeth concerns of her own and recycled Alphonse's. Even if Alphonse had mentioned his suspicion to Elizabeth without the intent to influence her to write this letter... it would have compelled her to address the issue herself. It's just strange they both have the exact same idea of "Victor might see Elizabeth as a sister AND he's probably hooked up with some other chick and is depressed to leave her". And both of them say "hey, it's absolutely fine if you don't want to get married to your cousin. it is sorta weird to haha. but it would make everyone really happy in this really troubling time if you just got married anyway".

I think that the most likely answer though is the most boring for Elizabeth's character. And that is that every word of the letter is genuine and from her. "I really want to marry you, cousin, but I'm totally chill if you've been cheating on me this whole time and wish to drop me for another woman with very little warning. I only exist to please you, after all."

No matter what Elizabeth's intent is, Victor seems to have made the decision to marry her merely to hasten the coming of his own death. Whether or not he does want to do well by her, he's using her as a tool for his own destruction.