The Castle of Otranto Literary Elements

Novel

Medieval Italy; Gothic castle

Third person omniscient

Tone: histrionic; fraught; foreboding

Mood: gloomy; vengeful; suspenseful; anxious

Protagonists: Isabella, Matilda, and Theodore. Antagonist: Manfred.

The main conflict is whether Manfred will be able to marry Isabella in order to produce a male heir so he can continue to reign over the principality of Otranto.

This is the sort of overwrought tale that seems to have many climaxes, but the best contender is probably when Manfred murders his own daughter and everything he planned unravels.

1. Right after the hasty marriage of Conrad and Isabella is announced, Manfred's servants think of the rumored curse levied on the family regarding the castle and lordship of Otranto passing when the present owner grows too large to inhabit the castle.
2. Bianca tells Manfred that the other servants think the moon will not be out before there is a revolution, and that she thinks it will happen soon.

N/A.

1. Luther: Martin Luther, leader of the Protestant Reformation (5)
2. Voltaire, the great Frenchman of arts and letters
3. The text has numerous references to works of Shakespeare
4. Jerome is an allusion to the 4th century theologian and hermit
5. Theodore may allude to Theodoric the Great, the Gothic King of Italy; the name meant "gift of God"
6. Joppa, also known as Yafo, Japho, Jaffa; an ancient Israeli port and a focus for the Crusades (74)

See separate section on Imagery.

In the second preface Walpole writes, "My rule was nature" (10). This is paradoxical because there is arguably nothing natural about portraits coming to life, specters of deceased princes and hermits, giant helmets falling on people, castle walls crumbling, etc. Walpole prides himself on the natural reactions of his characters, but he undermines the supposed naturalness of his novel with these fantastical elements.

N/A.

1. "I will advise with her on taking the veil" (Isabella, 80): metonymy, using "veil" to refer to becoming a nun.

1. "Providence, that delivered me from the helmet, was able to direct me to the spring of a lock, said he" (Theodore, 30)
2. "The valour that had so long been smothered in his breast, broke forth at once" (Narrator, 71)
3. "There is a destiny that hangs over us; the hand of Providence is stretched out" (Hippolita, 83)
4. "But if in the latter species Nature has cramped imagination, she did but take her revenge, having been but totally excluded from old romances" (9)