MATHILDA By Mary Shelley

                      Book Review of MATHILDA by Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley was born on 30th August, 1797 in London England and is the daughter to William Godwin and feminist activist Mary Wollestonecraft. She was an English author, travel writer ,historian and dramatist.  She is famously known for writing a horrific fiction novel, Frankenstein (1818). Mathilda or Matilda, a fiction novel is Mary Shelley's second work after Frankenstein and is written between 1819 and 1820.

The story is a narration about, "a father who posses an unnatural desire for his daughter" and how it ruins both the daughter Mathilda's life as well as the father. This fiction novel is written in 19th Century romantic style. The story is a narration about " a father who posses an unnatural desire for his daughter" and how it ruins both the daughter Mathilda's life as well as the father. This novel is a package of Incestuous love for a daughter, sensation and is full of melodrama.

The novel begins  by  drawing the attention of the reader's as Mathilda the protagonist  of this novel is lying on her deathbed and narrating the story of her life. The reason of writing this novel is that she had to face trouble in her marriage life, and had undergone depression,  after the deaths of her children, one year old Clara in 1818 and three year old son William in 1819.  Mary Shelley's, ‘’Mathilda’’, is somewhat autobiographical in nature as it reflects  her own life portrayed by Mathilda.

The story commences with Mathilda's father leaving England a month after his wife passes away, and abandons parental responsibility, raised by unaffectionate aunt. Mathilda is now left to stay in Scotland in rural isolation. Later, one day when Mathilda turns 16,  the reader is again introduced by Mathilda's father. Her Father returns and reclaims her while Mathilda is overjoyed and beatific to see her father back. Soon, her father develops unnatural feelings towards her. However, he reveals his incestuous love for her. Mathilda is sickened by her father's revelation, after he confesses his love for his daughter, he feels ashamed, guilty of this unnatural love and falls from a cliff and commits suicide. Mathilda is now devasted by this incident and is unhappy and falls into depression. She pretends and fakes her death and runs to Scotland again as she was frightened if she would be judged by the society. The theme of loss and grief were well portrayed. To me, Mathilda's father was a nice person who fell into corrupt desires.

After a few days, she meets  poet Woodville. She doesn't seem to be much interested in Woodville all she wants from a dear friend is to be with her through pain and suffering and join her in her sadness. Mathilda requests him if they could together have a romantic suicide. It was then brought to the reader's notice that Woodville eventually didn't wanted to do such thing and wanted to mourn the death of his dearest wife Elinor. In her deathbed, she wished to write a small letter to Woodville, telling him about her hardship and torment which she faced. One of most dreadful story. The writing style is interesting and  pleasing. But According to me, I felt that the second half of this book was dragged a little. Overall, It is one of a depressing novel.

It made the reader's feel pity for Mathilda ( protagonist) of this novel as she had to face hardship. I could sense her suffering and pain while reading. Right from beginning, after Mathilda was born her father abandoned her, she was yearning for warmth from her aunt but unfortunately her aunt was not at all caring and refused to love Mathilda. Later, when her father returns to reclaim her, she finds that love and affection from her father.

To me, this novel would be more interesting if someone is a die hard fan of Mary Shelley. It is a good read novel. Last few chapters started to turn boring. This Book is unique in its own way and has its own perks and drawbacks. This novel was written in they year 1819 but unfortunately wasn't published until 1959. The reason behind this is that  Mary's father William Godwin  kept the manuscript with him and was not ready to return the book because this novel actually parallels their own father-daughter relationship. I would like to say, that if one keeps the themes aside and concentrate on the actual story, then this is book is a must read book. And now it has become one of my favourite book of all time.

Name: Romany Dmello, Roll No: 09

Bibliography: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/inflibnet-ebooks/detail.action?docID=583250

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