Although the female characters in Frankenstein are not given significant importance in a direct role, their influence upon Victor Frankenstein drives the entire plot. Victor's descent into madness begins immediately after his mother's death. Prior to his mother's death he led an ideal life as Victor clearly states, "No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself".
             When Victor turned seventeen he was to attend university but was detained by, "the first misfortune of my life occurred-an omen, as it were, of my future misery". His mother died of scarlet fever. This had a hugely profound effect on Victor. At first he could not bring himself to admit that she had truly passed on, " It is so long before the mind can persuade itself that she, whom we saw every day, and whose very existence appeared a part of our own, can have departed for ever--that the brightness of a beloved eye can have been extinguished, and the sound of a voice so familiar, and dear to the ear, can be hushed, never more to be heard. These are the reflections of the first days; but when the lapse of time proves the reality of the evil, then the actual bitterness of grief commences".
             Victor was in the midst of the grieving process, therefore was in no shape to embark on another traumatic event -his departing for university as planned, leaving behind his entire support system. He even stated that he thought it was too soon, "It appeared to me sacrilege so soon to leave the repose, akin to death, of the house of mourning and rush into the thick of life".
             It is at the university that Victor finds a channel for his grief. In his attempt to eradicate his suffering, he chose to direct his efforts to the very source of what distressed him, which was to obliterate the finality of death itself. In this passage, Victor Frankenstein describes the birth of his obsession to find the cure for death, "I felt as if my soul were grappling with a palpable...