Discussion Question 2: Page 143

2. What does the excerpt from page 143 reveal about Matilda’s view of death?

Before her, in the arms of death, lay him on whom her hopes of happiness seemed to have formed so firm a basis.

Before her lay her rival, pierced with innumerable wounds, whose head reclined on Verezzi’s bosom, and whose angelic features, even in death, a smile of affection pervaded.

There she herself stood, an isolated guilty being. A fiercer paroxysm of passion now seized her: in an agony of horror, too great to be described, she tore her hair in handfuls – she blasphemed the power who had given her being, and imprecated eternal torments upon the mother who had born [sic] her.

“And is it for this,” added the ferocious Matilda – “is it for horror, for torments such as these that He, whom monks call all-merciful, has created me?”

She seized the dagger which lay on the floor.

“Ah, friendly dagger,” she exclaimed, in a voice of friend-like horror, “would that thy blow produced annihilation! with what pleasure then would I clasp thee to my heart!”

She raised it high – she gazed on it – the yet warm blood of the innocent Julia trickled from its point.

The guilty Matilda shrunk at death – she let fall the up-raised dagger – her sou[l] had caught a glimpse of the misery which awaits the wicked hereafter, and, spite of her contempt of religion – spite of atheism, she trembled at futurity; and a voice from within, which whispers, “thou shalt never die!” spoke daggers to Matilda’s soul (143).

Shelley, Percy B. Zastrozzi and St. Irvyne. Ed. Stephen C. Behrendt. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press Ltd., 2000.

Discussion Question 1: Page 155

1. Using the excerpt from page 155 as a sample, does Shelley incorporate all the provided dictionary definitions of death? Does he add any definitions?
   

“The father of him, who, by my arts committed suicide by six days ago in La Contessa di Laurentini’s mansion, took advantage of a moment of weakness, and disgraced her who bore me. He swore with the most sacred oaths to marry her – but he was false.

“My mother soon brought me into the world – the seducer married another; and, when the destitute Olivia begged a pittance to keep her from starving, her proud betrayer spurned her from his door, and tauntingly bade her exercise her profession. – the crime I committed with thee, perjured one! exclaimed my mother, as she left his door, shall be my last! – and, by heavens! she acted nobly. A victim to falsehood, she sank early to the tomb, and ere her thirtieth year, she died – her spotless soul fled to eternal happiness. – Never shall I forget, though by fourteen when she died – never shall I forget her last commands. – My son, said she, my Pietrino, revenge my wrongs – revenge them on the perjured Verezzi – revenge them on his progeny for ever.

“And, by heaven! I think I have revenged them. Ere I was twenty-four, the false villain, though surrounded by seemingly impenetrable grandeur; though forgetful of the offence to punish which this arm was nerved, sank beneath my dagger. But I destroyed his body alone,” added Zastrozzi, with a terrible look of insatiated vengeance: “time has taught me better: his son’s soul is hell-doomed to all eternity: he destroyed himself; but my machinations, though unseen, effected his destruction” (155).

Shelley, Percy B. Zastrozzi and St. Irvyne. Ed. Stephen C. Behrendt. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press Ltd., 2000.

Death in the Gothic Genre: Kurtz

“The hero of Zastrozzi, after having been for over a hundred pages in continual danger of death, and daily having experienced tortures worse than death, at last commits suicide” (Kurtz 4).

Death exists as “a suffering inflicted by the oppressor or as a justice meted out to him […] as an escape for the oppressed” (Kurtz 10).

“Finally, there is a definitely debility of spirit. I refer to a positive dread of death” (Kurtz 23).

In Zastrozzi, “Shelley has exulted in the painful death of bigots and tyrants, and has found therein the cure of all evils” (Kurtz 113).

Kurtz, Benjamin P. The Pursuit of Death. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971.

Death in the Gothic Genre: Murphy

“The code that Zastrozzi follows” is one which moves him to “try to destroy both the body and the soul of his victim” (Murphy 28).

“For complete vengeance, […] it is necessary that hell receive the soul of one’s enemy” (Murphy 29).

Zastrozzi’s motivation for murdering Verezzi “partakes of a physical and spiritual kind” (Murphy 29).

Murphy, John V. The Dark Angel: Gothic Elements in Shelley’s Works. London: Associated University Presses, 1975.

Plot Advancement: Death's Role

The entire plot is advanced by the death of Zastrozzi’s mother. She “sank early to the tomb” because Verezzi’s father “spurned her from his door,” and Zastrozzi seeks revenge (155).

Verezzi’s death is secured from the beginning of the story; Zastrozzi swears “never to rest until […he] accomplish[es] the purpose of his soul” (70).

Julia’s death is a necessity to Matilda; she tells Zastrozzi she “must destroy Julia” (78).

Verezzi remains with Matilda when he finds her by the river, after her “life fled [after her] desperate act,” attempted suicide (82).

In an attempt to see his beloved, dead Julia, Verezzi attempts to kill himself. He believes he will see Julia in death; he says he will “‘seek [her] unspotted soul’”; he declares he “‘will again clasp [his] lost Julia’” (93).

The plot ends with Zastrozzi’s death, following Julia’s and Verezzi’s (156).

Shelley, Percy B. Zastrozzi and St. Irvyne. Ed. Stephen C. Behrendt. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press Ltd., 2000.

Spiritual Death 4

Verezzi, after hearing of Julia’s supposed death, dies within his own spirit; his “approaching dissolution” comes slowly for him, “for he wait[s] with impatience for the arrival of death” (108).

Verezzi recalls a conversation he had with Julia; “she expressed an idea, that a union in this life might endure to all eternity; and that the chosen of his heart on earth, might, by congeniality of sentiment, be united in heaven.” For Julia, then, a dead body is not an obstacle for enduring love; even when the physical has passed, she believes their love can live on in their spirits, which she holds will live on in heaven (126).

Zastrozzi tells Matilda not to fear death because “fate wills us to die”; Zastrozzi “intend[s] to meet death, to encounter annihilation, with tranquility.” Zastrozzi is “convinced of the non-existence of a Deity” and “convinced that death will […] render [his] soul more free, more unfettered.” He sees no need for anyone “to shudder at death,” and holds that such fear is based upon “the errors of a false and injurious superstition” (153).

Zastrozzi is happy to die; he says that all he has “to do on earth is completed”; Zastrozzi is implying that there is activity to be completed elsewhere (156).

Shelley, Percy B. Zastrozzi and St. Irvyne. Ed. Stephen C. Behrendt. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press Ltd., 2000.

Spiritual Death 3

Zastrozzi’s soul is dead to everything but revenge; he says that “revenge has swallowed up every other feeling of [his] soul – [he is] alive to nothing but revenge”; “his soul, deadened by crime, could only entertain confused ideas of immortal happiness” (102).

Matilda questions Zastrozzi about the future of the soul; she wonders if “the soul decays with the body,” and if “it wastes its fervent energies in tasteless apathy, or lingering moments” while still encased in the body, on earth (103).

Zastrozzi says that while still inside the body, while still “in the chains of mortality” the soul can, “by daring boldly, by striving to verge from the beaten path […] gain superior advantages in a future state” (103).

Matilda is “alive to no idea but Verezzi,” and this new life “calmed her soul, […] and the passions which so lately had battled fiercely in her bosom were calmed” (104).

Verezzi views Julia’s death only as a physical death; he says that just “because [his] Julia’s spirit is no longer enshrined in its earthly form, [he is not] less devotedly, […] less irrevocably hers.” He declares that “to all eternity [he] shall be hers: and when [his] soul, divested of mortality, departs into another world […] it will seek the unspotted spirit of [his] idolised Julia.” Although Matilda is able to take Julia’s body from this earth, she is unable to remove her spirit from Verezzi (107).

Shelley, Percy B. Zastrozzi and St. Irvyne. Ed. Stephen C. Behrendt. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press Ltd., 2000.