Mary Shelley's Mathilda and the Struggle for Female Narrative Subjectivity

This article departs from the psychobiographical approach to Mary Shelley's dark incest novella Mathilda, engaging with recent feminist readings that interpret Shelley's heroine as a self-constructed actress who feigns passivity to gain empowerment. This interpretation of Mathilda as powerful actress instead of a helpless victim attempts to recuperate her as a positive figure of female agency. However, while Mathilda illuminates obstacles to female self-expression, it also critiques the ideology of a society that rewards contrivance and female passivity. Through readings of Mathilda's narrative voice and the individuals who threaten it, the article examines the heroine not as a biographical representation of Shelley, but as a carefully constructed character who allows us to discern the author's uneasiness about the sacrifices necessary to secure female narrative autonomy in her society.