Mathilda is a novel by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley that explores the life of Matilda, a woman isolated from society due to her unconventional upbringing. Matilda’s mother dies immediately after childbirth, leaving her father devastated. He passes on the parental responsibility to Matilda’s aunt and leaves. Sixteen years later, the father returns only to confess his undying incestuous love for her daughter and then proceeds to commit suicide by drowning.
After the death of her aunt and father, Matilda falls into a cycle of loneliness, unhappiness, and suicidal tendencies. Drowning in a deep depression, she fakes her death and completely removes herself from the society, choosing to live in utter isolation with only her one maid as a company. Plagued with the same fate as her father, she plans to commit suicide. Matilda enlists the help of her close friend who is a poet and tasks him with making her death as romantic as possible by consuming poison together.
Unwilling to kill himself, the poet attempts to detract Matilda from killing herself to no avail. He tries to help her find some purpose in life, but she dies after contracting consumption. The poet is relieved that Matilda did not follow in her father’s suicidal footsteps. There is hope that Matilda reunited with her father in the afterlife and reciprocated his incestuous love.
Mathilda is a novella full of melodrama and controversial issues that were suppressed for a century because of its unfettered exploration of incestuous affection and suicidal drive. After Matilda’s father confesses his sexual feelings to her, it is hinted that Matilda began to develop those same feelings for his father as well. His sudden death completely devastates her as she feels like everyone who loved her has abandoned her. All she can do is find peace in death where she hopes to reunite with her father and lover.
