Mary Shelley's "Mathilda"

Paper Summary:

The paper analyzes how Mary Shelley's novel "Mathilda" offers insights into Shelley's own personal life. The paper describes the difficult and dark story of incest, love and loss and shows how "Mathilda" mirrors many aspects of Shelley's life, from the estrangement with her father to her growing distance from the poet she loved.

From the Paper:

"It is important to understand elements of Shelley's life to see just how this novel parallels her own short and difficult life. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born in August 1797 in London. Her mother died eleven days after she was born, and her father raised her along with her half-sister. Both of her parents were well-known writers of the time, and so it seems fitting that Mary would follow in their footsteps. In addition, her parents had led scandalous lives before they met and married. Her mother had an illegitimate child before she met William Godwin, and they had only married five months before she was born, because they did not believe in marriage."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Nitchie, Elizabeth. Mary Shelley: Author of "Frankenstein." Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1970.
• O'Sullivan, Barbara Jane. "Beatrice in Valperga: A New Cassandra." The Other Mary Shelley: Beyond Frankenstein. Ed. Audrey A. Fisch, Anne K. Mellor, and Esther H. Schor. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. 140-156.
• Rajan, Tilottama. "Mary Shelley's 'Mathilda': Melancholy and the Political Economy of Romanticism." Studies in the Novel 26.2 (1994): 43+.
• Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Mathilda. Ed. Elizabeth Nitchie. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1959.<http://manybooks.net/titles/shelleym15231523815238-8.html>
• Shelley, Mary. The Journals of Mary Shelley, 1814-1844. Ed. Paula R. Feldman and Diana Scott-Kilvert. Vol. 2. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987.

More papers on Mary Shelley's "Mathilda":

• Comparison Essay # 125135 : "The Novels of Mary Shelley"
• Analytical Essay # 4747 : "Masculine Revisioning in Kenneth Branagh's "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein"

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