Understanding & Being Understood — Lessons from Mary Shelley’s ‘Matilda’
“I was breathless with emotion…”
Small. Featureless cover. One page ripped as it was found tucked away in a corner by the last careless caresser — Such was my first encounter with Matilda. I was stunted, not knowing what I had come across or what I should do. The voice of customer services boomed overhead, warning me of the closure times. Hastily I threw it among my other reapings and headed to reception.
In many ways, Matilda resembles any other tragic love story. Girl meets boy, one party dies and the other soon dies too. But Mary Shelley grabbed this trope and scrunched it in her mind until it emerged anew, and by Jove her creation deserves as much attention as her Frankenstein. Written in the form of a letter by a dying woman Matilda, we are exposed to a tragic childhood, tumultuous teenage years and finally her unstable adulthood. Though the text there emerges a dark story of a bereaved father’s disturbing passion for his own daughter. Themes of isolation and suppression were scattered across the pages like the crumbled pieces of a fallen stature. If Frankenstein was a bottle of strong spirits, Matilda would be the hangover afterward.
I blew through the story in one sitting, and since then my mind never stopped thinking about this haunting tale. I took time to assemble all those shattered pieces, and they are now presented in the form of a story. This story.
So here is what this little bundle of darkness taught me about hope, soulmates, expression and loneliness.
Understanding and Appreciating Companionship
“Others will toss these pages lightly over: to you, Woodville, kind affectionate friend, they will be dear, your tears will fall on the words that record my misfortunes.”
- Matilda Chapter One
Matilda begins her letter and addresses us by the name of ‘Woodville’, her dearest and only companion. Although not obvious, Shelley hints at the importance of having someone who can relate to yourself on a personal scale. This letter would not have been written if Matilda didn’t have Woodville as someone whom she could tell her story.
Lost amid the buzz of social media and large, complex global communities, we often forget to appreciate or even neglect those people closest to us. I still come across faded cards and crude, crumpled notes stuffed away in my closet — the only remnants of all the friends I lost.
It took me a school transfer to realise all this. It was only when I turned at the corner of a street, expecting a familiar voice; or when the blur of a familiar face passing by in the corridor only turns to be a hullicination, that I discovered my true isolation in my little universe.
Matilda however, had no friendships and knew not how to form them. My temporal turbulence was her reality. This feeling of emptiness is prevalent all throughout her heart-wrenching letter — a warning for us to reconnect and preserve our dearest relationships before it’s too late.
Making Time for Solitude and Silence
“The solitude to which I was forever hereafter destined nursed gentle thoughts in my wounded heart. The breeze that played in my hair revived me, and I watched with quiet eyes the sunbeams that glittered on the waves and the birds that coursed over the water, just brushing with waves with their plumes.”
- Matilda Chapter Eight
Soon after the suicide of her incestuous father, Matilda decides to cast herself into isolation. She loses faith in the solace of society and believes the only path to her sanity is her being alone. While at first glance this seems both physically and psychologically damaging, does isolation really prove to be as insidious as it’s often rumoured to be?
I think not.
We all need alone time. While it may not be as extreme as Matilda’s case, I still often resort to isolation after the exhaustion of socialising overpowers me. Learning to enjoy our own company is sometimes more important than seeking attention with others.
Matilda once again showed me how I could never fathom the events in another’s life. Her suffering cannot be described in simple terms, and trying to might just push her over the ledge. By keeping to ourselves we give others around us time to reflect.
A break somewhere beautiful always cheers me up, gives me solutions across the fissures of life. After all, a season of isolation is what grants a caterpillar its butterfly wings.
We all live our lives alone, yet as humans we also crave love and sympathy. Sometimes our paths cross and we walk our roads together. Mary Shelley teaches us the importance of balance — when either too much interaction or no interaction both prove to be fatal in their own ways.
Heartache and Grief can Create New Happiness
“I found if sorrow was dead within me, so was love and the desire of sympathy. Yet sorrow only slept to revive more fierce, but love never woke again.”
- Matilda Chapter Eight
The pages of Matilda’s letter bleed with emotion as she recounts all the people, places and things she had lost. She even thinks of her wretched father with heartrending poignancy. All these memories burden Matilda, and she often goes through cycle upon cycle of sorrow. During one passage, she reflects on how happy memories of her past thrust her deeper into the cruel reality of her present condition — a new way of interpreting past euphoria.
Losing hurts. It doesn’t matter who or what. Yet all the ache we’ve felt in the past often only exacerbate the pain we fell upon loss. As much as we hate to talk about it, we experience negative feelings every single day. For me, this is especially the case with this year. The pandemic was the hole in the bottom of my little skiff and now I’m desperately clinging to the pieces of driftwood as I’m flushed out into the ocean.
Being the fresh transfer to a new high school in the middle of a pandemic redefined my definiton of ‘losing’. For a long time I hid from myself, fearing the truth. I lost all my friends. Every single relationship over the last year strewn across the waves: dismantled and broken. I was Matilda. I felt the emptiness she felt as she journeyed through the storm, bearing the shells of her past. As much I hate to talk about it, I think a small bit of that grief still hides somewhere inside.
But however painful, grief is just as important as love or sadness. An order given by Mother Nature to start over. Do birds weep for their fallen nests? I’m sure they do. But after the storm they gather themselves, ruffle their feathers and sing a little tune of sadness…And then they begin anew. They let go.
I learned from them, and perhaps Shelley wants us to learn from them too.
The Importance of Expression and Release(The Improbability of Soulmates)
“ I wish for one heart which I could pour unrestrained my plaints.”
-Matilda Chapter Nine
All along, Matilda searches for someone who truly understands her swell of emotions. She wouldn’t admit it, but however much she complains about the ‘wretchedness’ of her fellow humans, she is always seeking that one soulmate.
Growing up, I always had a sort of suspicion in the back of my mind, telling me that however clear I express myself, I could never convey the emotions I really felt. I knew the perfect soulmate is impossible, and so I hid all that excess emotion, my heart folding upon itself. Matilda does the same, only that she eventually explodes in a fireball of passion and burns out.
As beautiful as companionship is, sometimes it’s best that we express our fervour through something other than conversation. After all, everyone has their own problems to deal with, and extrinsic stimuli is always objective.
Mary Shelley uses Matilda to paint a vivid image, showing us how suppressed passion could become so devastating. Matilda creates temporary peace by submerging her head underwater, but as she runs out of breath we could so clearly see the importance of expression and release.
Appreciating Nature and the Small Things in Life
“What had I to love? Oh many things: there was the moonshine, and the bright stars; the breeze and the refreshing rains; there was the whole earth and the sky that covers it: all lovely forms that visited my imagination, all memoirs of heroism and virtue.”
-Matilda Chapter Eleven
Not all is dark in Shelley’s story. In the end, days before her death, Matilda comes to the revelation that her love is still present. She begins to explore and appreciate the small things that made her happy, such as nature and her own imagination.
Perhaps it’s easy to make sweeping statements about life. I’m especially guilty of big morals and big ideas. But when I slow down, open a book, and press my heart against the small descriptions the characters see, the smallest details are the most memorable.
The candlelight fractured into a warm hues of a loved one’s eyes. Sunbeams cutting across the surface of a lake. A cocoon, waiting patiently for the spring. I forget how happy the simple things make me feel…
Matilda’s life may not be the happiest of all, yet it still brought a melancholic smile to my face. Even though she was bed-ridden with sickness, she still reignited her hope. She screams to fate: It’s not too late. I am here. She gave up the pursuit of death and instead found love once more in her surroundings.
In knowing her last breaths were that of a person with a soothed heart, I turned over the last page and heaved a deep breath.
Fiction breaks the boundary of culture and experience, it mingles our voices with that of the character’s. The final lesson that Matilda taught me was just how morally grey a piece could be. Amidst all the darkness, I still learned so much about understanding and friendship and love.
To a degree, I was wrong. Matilda isn’t just a story about dark desire and suicide. It shows us the strength of the human psyche. Not a bundle of darkness but a steady lamp which I feel the urge to pass on.
Hence, I shall end the story so. And dear reader, here is Mary Shelley’s final word:
“Bear boldly up against the storm: continue wise and mild, but believe it, and indeed it is, your duty to be happy.”
-Matilda
