On Page 58, what does Justine do and why? What does she tell VIctor and Elizabeth？ How does this further the idea that women play a passive role in the novel?

Justine confesses to the murder. She explains it thus;

"‘I did confess, but I confessed a lie. I confessed, that I might obtain absolution; but now that falsehood lies heavier at my heart than all my other sins. The God of heaven forgive me! Ever since I was condemned, my confessor has besieged me; he threatened and menaced, until I almost began to think that I was the monster that he said I was. He threatened excommunication and hell fire in my last moments if I continued obdurate. Dear lady, I had none to support me; all looked on me as a wretch doomed to ignominy and perdition. What could I do? In an evil hour I subscribed to a lie; and now only am I truly miserable.’ She paused, weeping, and then continued, ‘I thought with horror, my sweet lady, that you should believe your Justine, whom your blessed aunt had so highly honoured, and whom you loved, was a creature capable of a crime which none but the devil himself could have perpetrated."

Wome are certainly not the main focus of the novel. They're props, nothing more. Even the love between Victor and Elizabeth is secondary to the rest of the story.