Role of nature in Mathilda by Mary Shelley The naturalistic imagery that pervades Mathilda by Mary Shelley serves as an underlying theme for the incestuous relationship between Mathilda and her father and her unruly consequences. Their relationship is a crime against the laws of nature and causes Mathilda to be ostracized from the very world she loved as a child. Shelley's implementation of naturalistic imagery accentuates the illicit and subsequent ramifications of the relationship between Mathilda and her father and contrasts the ideals and boundaries of the natural and spiritual worlds. The naturalistic images span Mathilda's childhood as she is pushed to find solace in Nature due to the lack of affection she receives from her stern aunt, whom she describes as a "plant under a thick layer of ice" (1343). Mathilda went through a sad childhood, devoid of affection and company, losing herself in the dynamics of Nature: "I loved everything, even the inanimate objects that surrounded me. I believe I had an individual attachment to every tree in our park; every animal that inhabited me knew them and I loved them... But my pleasure was born only from the contemplated of nature, I had no companion: my warm affections, not finding a reciprocation from any other human heart, were forced to waste themselves on inanimate things" (1343-44). The lack of human affection she experiences pushes her to regret her father who abandoned her as a child. Mathilda compares herself to a solitary being who "brought Rosalind and Miranda and the lady of Comus to life to be my companions, or on my island acted on their parts imagining she was in their situations" (1344). The reference to Rosalind from Shakespeare's As You Like It... half of the sheet... I should raise my eyes without fear to meet hers, which ever shone with the soft splendor of innocent love" (1373). it is fitting that it be the Nature begins the end of Mathilda's life. She becomes fatally ill after getting lost in the forest after Woodville's departure, and then, during her last days, she chooses to die surrounded by Nature: "I let myself be led. once more to behold the face of nature" (1376). Death represents rebirth for Mathilda, where she can exist in a world that will not judge her feelings as unfit. In her farewell to Woodville, Mathilda illustrates her feelings of alienation from the natural world and how death will allow her to escape such feelings: "Goodbye, Woodville, the grass will soon be green on my grave; and violets will bloom on it. There is my hope and my expectation; yours are in this world; can be satisfied" (1376).