enters into the Frankenstein household, as the natural daughter of a revolutionary
Milanese aristocrat who had been imprisoned by the Austrian government and had had
his property confiscated (see I:1:9) for being too ardent in the cause of his country's
liberty. Although Alphonse Frankenstein's dealings here might be construed as an honorable,
duty-bound attempt by a citizen of a neutral nation to right a wrong and restore to
Elizabeth what had been rightly hers, it is hard to imagine Mary Shelley, who abhorred
the Austrian occupation of Italy and represented Elizabeth's true father as "nursed
in the antique glory of Italy," not thinking this detail commensurate with the essentially
conservative, state-oriented political views Alphonse exhibits elsewhere (see, for
instance, I:1:1 or I:6:44 and note).