MARY SHELLEY’NİN MATHILDA ADLI ESERİNİN EKOFEMİNİST ANALİZİ: KENDİ TABU KURGUSUNU YAZAN KADIN ANLATICI

Abstract

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’nin kısa romanı Mathilda’yı yirmi birinci yüzyılda ecofeminist bir bakış açısı ile yeniden okumak, çok yönlü bakış açılarıyla çağdaş eleştirilere ışık tutar. Mathilda’nın taslağının, 1959 yılında Elizabeth Nitchie tarafından mikrofilminden kopyası çıkartılarak basılması, İngiliz edebiyat tarihinde bir dönüm noktasıdır. Başta babası William Godwin olmak üzere, yazarın erkek akrabaları tarafından yüzyıldan fazla bir zaman saklanan eserin basımı, devrim niteliğinde bir tabu kurgusunu gözler önüne serer. 1819-1820 yılları arasında yazılan bu eser, Shelley’nin hayattayken tamamladığı tek eser olma niteliğine sahiptir. Ustaca kurgulanan eser, babasının kendisine karşı beslediği ensest sevgisini itiraf etmesinden dolayı, toplumdan kendisini soyutlayıp doğayla bütünleşerek yaşayan ana karakter Mathilda’nın travmatik itiraflarını ve intihar eğilimini betimleyen mektuplarını içerir. Hak ettiğinden daha az değer gören Mathilda’nın, edebiyat eleştirmenleri tarafından genellikle otobiyografik açıdan ve ensest temasıyla ilişkilendirilerek yorumlanması, eserin edebi değerlerini azaltmaktadır. Oysa bu eser, feminist ve ekolojik kuramlar ve kadın yazını ile de bağdaşmaktadır. Bu makale, analizini biyografik bağlamın ve yazarın yaşam deneyimlerinin dışında tutarak ve ecofeminist kuramları ele alarak, kadın anlatıcının kendi tabu kurmacasını yazmasında doğanın nasıl etkin bir rol üstlendiğini göstermeyi amaçlar. Ayrıca bu çalışma, ekofeminizmi kadın yazını ile harmanlayarak, kadın ve doğa arasındaki ilişkiyi de araştırır ve kadın karakteri, kendi tabu hikayesini, feminist bir bakış açısıyla ve doğayla ilişki içinde cesurca kurgulayarak ve on dokuzuncu yüzyıl erkek egemen Romantik akımının geleneklerine karşı gelerek yazınsal düzeye nasıl taşıdığını tartışır.

Keywords

• Mary Shelley
• Mathilda
• Ekofeminizm
• Tabu Kurmacası
• Doğa
• Kadın Yazını

AN ECOFEMINIST ANALYSIS OF MARY SHELLEY’S MATHILDA: THE FEMALE NARRATOR WRITING HER OWN TABOO FICTION

Abstract

Re-reading Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novelette, Mathilda, in the twenty-first century from an ecofeminist perspective sheds a new light on contemporary criticism, opening up multifaceted perspectives. There was a critical moment in British literary history when Elizabeth Nitchie transcribed Mathilda from the microfilm of the manuscript and published it in 1959, which unveiled this piece of revolutionary taboo fiction suppressed for over a century by the author’s male relatives, chiefly Shelley’s father, William Godwin. Written in 1819-1820, Mathilda is the only work completed during Shelley’s lifetime. It is an artfully crafted epistolary work depicting the traumatic confessions and suicidal tendencies of the protagonist, Mathilda, a woman who isolated herself from society by integrating herself with nature due to her father’s confession for his incestuous passion towards her. Regarded as an underrated work, Mathilda has often been interpreted from biographical and incest-related perspectives by literary critics, which relegates its literary merits although it is in accordance with feminist and ecological theories and feminine writing. This paper, avoiding biographical accounts and the author’s life experiences and with theories consistent with those of ecofeminism, intends to show how nature functions as an effective instrument for the female writer to fictionalize her taboo story. By blending ecofeminism with feminine writing, this paper also investigates the interplay between woman and nature, and navigates how a female character courageously relocates her taboo story on a textual level from a feminist perspective in a natural setting, challenging the male-dominant Romantic tradition of the nineteenth century.

Keywords

• Mary Shelley
• Mathilda
• Ecofeminism
• Taboo Fiction
• Nature
• Feminine Writing

References

1. Alighieri D. (1381-1321). “Purgatorio.” Canto 28. Dante Lab Reader. 2023 © Trustees of Dartmouth College. Accessed on 23 February, 2023. http://dantelab.dartmouth.edu/reader?reader%5Bcantica%5D=2&reader%5Bcanto%5D=2
2. Bernardo, S. M. (2002). “Seductive Confession in Mary Shelley’s Mathilda,” Gender Reconstructions: Pornography and Perversions in Literature and Culture. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 42-52.
3. Birkeland, J. (1993). “Ecofeminism: Linking Theory and Practice.” In G. Gaard (Ed.), Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 13-59.
4. Byron, G. G. B. (1817). Manfred. New York: Van Winkle and Wiley.
5. Cuomo, C. (Autumn, 2002). “On Ecofeminist Philosophy.” Ethics & The Environment. 7(2), 1-11.
6. D’Eaubonne F. (1974). Le Féminisme ou la Mort. Paris: Pierre Horay.
7. Faubert, M. (2017). “On Editing Mary Shelley’s Mathilda,” https://broadviewpress.com/editing-mary-shelleys-mathilda/ Accessed on January 15, 2023.
8. Harpold, T. (1989). “‘Did you Get Mathilda from Papa?’: Seduction Fantasy and the Circulation of Mary Shelley’s Mathilda.” Studies in Romanticism, 28(2) (Spring). 49-67.

9. Hoeveler, D. (1997). “Mary Shelley and Gothic Feminism: The Case of ‘The Mortal Immortal.’” In Iconoclastic Departures: Mary Shelley After ‘Frankenstein’: Essays in Honour of the Bicentenary of Mary Shelley’s Birth. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 150-163.
10. Hottell, R. A. (2022). (Trans.). Feminism or Death: How the Women’s Movement Can Save the Planet. New York: Verso Books.
11. Lewis, M. G. (1796). The Monk: a romance. London; New York: Penguin Books.
12. Mellor, A. K. (1988). Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters. New York: Methuen.
13. Miller, K. A. (2008). “The Remembrance Haunts Me Like a Crime”: Narrative Control, the Dramatic, and the Female Gothic in Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Mathilda.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature. 27(2). 291-308.
14. Nitchie, E. (1959). (Ed.) Mathilda. Chapel Hill: University of North Caroline Press.
15. --- (1943) “Mary Shelley’s Mathilda: An Unpublished Story and Its Biographical Significance.” Studies in Philology, 40 (3), 447-462.
16. Roth, A. (2002). “Lord Abinger.” Accessed on 26 February, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/nov/02/guardianobituaries.obituaries
17. Shelley, M. W. (2021). Mathilda. Ed. Ayşen Sultan Büyükyağcı. Ankara: Platanus Publishing.
18. --- “Fair Copy of Draft, in the Hand of Mary Shelley.” MS. Abinger d. 33. Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Accessed on 10 January, 2023. https://digital.bodlian.ox.ac.uk/objects/02cddd3b-0383-41c6-9dfc-bee7f75a6553/
19. --- (1818). Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus. Ed. Susan J. Wolfson. New York: Pearson Longman, 2007.
20. --- (1823). Valperga: Or, the life and adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca, 3 vols. London: Printed for G. and W. B. Whittaker, Ave-Maria-Lane.
21. --- (1835). Lodore. Ed. Lisa Vargo. Ontario: Broadview Books, 1997.
22. --- (1826). The Last Man. Ed. Morton D. Paley. Oxford: Oxford Paperbacks, 1998.
23. --- (1817). History of Six Weeks’ Tour through a part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland; with Letters Descriptive of a Sail Round the Lake of Geneva and of the Glaciers of Chamouni. London: T. Hookham, Jr. and C. and J. Ollier.
24. --- (1844). Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 (2 volumes; London: E. Moxon, 1844.
25. Shelly, P. (1819). The Cenci: A Tragedy in Five Acts: An Authoritative Text Based on the 1819 Edition. Ed. Cajsa C. Baldini. Kansas City, MO: Valancourt, 2008.
26. Shiva, V. (1988). Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Survival in India. New Delhi: Kali for Women & London: Zed Books Ltd.
27. Warren, K. (2000). Ecofeminist Philosophy: A Western Perspective on What It Is and Why It Matters. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
28. Wollstonecraft, M. (1792). A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects. London: Printed for J. Johnson.
29. Wordsworth, W. (1984). Letters of William Wordsworth. In Alan G. Hill (Ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press.
30. --- (1984). “Preface to Lyrical Ballads,” in Stephen Gill (ed.), The Oxford Authors: William Wordsworth. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 597.
31. --- (1798). “She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways.” Accessed on 25 February, 2023. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45549/she-dwelt-among-the-untrodden-ways