The Connecting Threads of War, Torture, and Pain in Mary Shelley’s Valperga

Abstract

This essay examines Mary Shelley’s Valperga: Or, the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca (1823) in terms of how Shelley weaves together issues of violence, war, torture, and pain. In order to develop my claims, the author analyzes three important sequences of events in the novel: Castruccio’s passage from hero to tyrant, Euthanasia’s critique of warfare, and Beatrice’s account of her imprisonment and torture. Against the backdrop of war and power that marks Castruccio’s rise to “glory,” Euthanasia’s condemnation of war and Beatrice’s captivity tale read as counter‐narratives that locate the ways in which power can be abused when unrestrained and unchecked. Additionally, Shelley’s own observations about Europe, recorded in History of a Six Weeks’ Tour, pre‐figure one of the central themes of Valperga, the devastation of war, while also allowing her to comment on the destruction left in Napoleon’s wake. Shelley essentially demonstrates a more pacifist stance on war than critics have previously attributed to her. While Valperga presents violence in its manifold forms, each form is questioned and ultimately presented as unsanctioned and illegitimate; there is, in Valperga, no form of violence or conflict that is legitimized by the narrative itself or by the characters within it.