He strove to shelter her, as a fair exotic is sheltered by the gardener, from every rougher wind and to surround her with all that could tend to excite pleasurable emotion in her soft and benevolent mind.
Chapter 1 · Narrator
Context
Victor describes how his father treated his mother Caroline after their marriage, seeking to shield her from hardship following her traumatic years of poverty.
Analysis
The extended simile of Caroline as 'a fair exotic' plant positions her as something delicate, foreign, and cultivated rather than as a full person. The gardener metaphor frames Alphonse's marriage as a kind of horticultural project—he controls her environment to produce 'pleasurable emotion,' as if her feelings were crops to be harvested. Shelley's diction ('soft and benevolent mind') reinforces the idea that Caroline is valued for passive, ornamental qualities, setting up the novel's broader critique of how the Frankensteins treat living beings as aesthetic objects.
Essay Tip
Use this to argue that the novel's creation-gone-wrong plot is foreshadowed in how the Frankenstein men treat women—Alphonse 'shelters' Caroline like an exotic specimen, prefiguring Victor's attempt to engineer a perfect being while ignoring its need for autonomy.