The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole Genre: Gothic, classics I read it as a(n): pb Length: 117 Her Grace’s rating: 4 stars
Generally considered to be the very first Gothic story, The Castle of Otranto is centered on Lord Manfred, his wife Hippolyta, his daughter Matilda, and his son’s fiancée Isabella. In the opening scenes, Manfred’s son, Conrad, gets smashed to a pulp by a giant metal helmet that seemed to come flying out of thin air when he was on his way to the church to marry Isabella. This, friends, is foreshadowing! Events proceed from there, with a family curse, a nefarious plot, a hidden nobleman, a random but handsome stranger from another town, and a salty monk bringing the action along with them.
One of the first things I noticed, and was surprised about, was how funny this story was! There are a couple of servants, Jaquez and Diego, who are like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The lady’s maid, Bianca, is like all four of those men rolled into one. Or maybe she is channeling her inner Lwaxana Troi. Either way, she’s hilarious. There were several spots where just the writing and narration itself made me laugh out loud as well. Walpole occasionally broke the fourth wall but good.
There was also a very heavy implication that nobility is a blood- or birthright. Considering that Walpole was himself a nobleman, that makes sense. It was a little on-the-nose in some parts, but I feel like Walpole was making a deliberate commentary about nobility. The idea running throughout the story is that nobility is inherent, not something one can inherit with titles or take through force. We see this played out in full force with Theodore and Manfred. Theo started out as a peasant in the story but through his actions and behaviors, showed that he was more noble than Manfred. When Theo is revealed to actually be a nobleman, it reads like a confirmation of what we already knew more than an actual plot twist. It’s a big contrast to Manfred who has the titles and lands to back up his claim of nobility, but he’s cruel, paranoid, and basically unhinged. Just like a certain tangerine-colored politician. Example of how life imitates art!
The way the women fit into nobility is also interesting, if frustrating on occasion. Hippolyta is noble by birth and actions. Her nobility is closely tied to her loyalty, humility, and piety. But she goes way overboard with the whole obedience thing and eventually her virtues are tied so closely with submission that they actually become the problem. She is a very virtuous doormat. Matilda is also virtuous and noble, and her compassion bears that out. She forgives and is empathetic even to people who wrong her. But since this is a Proper Gothic Story, there’s a lot of fatalism and in the end, Matilda’s virtues are not enough to save her.
I think Isabella is the most interesting. She is virtuous and everything a woman was expected to be at that time, but she also has a spine. She tells Manfred to fuck off when he wants to marry her, she always tries to protect other people, she chooses to be noble as well as being noble by birth. She also tries to save herself by getting the hell out of the castle and pelting to the monastery where she can claim sanctuary and avoid Manfred. She and Theo would make a great match, if that were part of the plot.
Overall, this was a fast and fun read, the first real Gothic story, and definitely one I recommend to anyone who is into that.
Some of my favorite lines:
“I fear no bad angel, and have offended no good one” (30).
“He tells you he is in love, or unhappy, it is the same thing” (41).
“Since mirth is not your mood, let us be sad” (64).
“A good Knight cannot go to the grave with more satisfaction than when falling in his vocation: whatever is the will of heaven, I submit” (66).
“He sighed, and retired, but with eyes fixed on the gate, until Matilda, closing it, put an end to an interview, in which the hearts of both had drunk so deeply of a passion, which both now tasted for the first time” (72).
“I can forget injuries, but never benefits” (95).
Her Grace's Library 
Love your review. I’ve just read the book (an 1826 copy!) and I agree that it is funny (the first word that occurred to me as I started reading it was ‘droll). I thoroughly endorse your remarks about Bianca, who drives the perpetually impatient Manfred mad as he tries to ‘sift’ her to find out what Matilda and Isabella are up to. She prevaricates and (deliberately?) misunderstands the questions and goes off on tangents, to the point that he gives her a ring to try to concentrate her mind. Like many servants, she is privy to a lot of secrets: “A by-stander often sees more of the game than those that play.” Manfred might be a cruel tyrant but he seems sorely tried by his domestics. Perhaps Walpole was channelling a few of his own frustrations with the servants of Strawberry Hill. Hippolita (as she appears in my edition) starts out as a merely conventional ‘good wife’ but becomes ever more self-denying and saintly in the face of Manfred’s increasingly insane demands. Perhaps HW is having a dig at Romantic novelists by overegging her virtues to the point of absurdity. Or maybe she’s just desperate for some peace and quiet in a nice safe convent where random bits of armour don’t suddenly fall out of the sky. Matilda seems a bit convent-fixated too until that unfortunate incident…The plot is, of course, completely bonkers. I’m not sure how well it matches our modern-day – or at least post-Polidori – conception of the gothic. True, there’s a hidden trapdoor and a tunnel, which everyone seems to know about except Manfred, but the super-sized sword and helmet seem more like something out of Monty Python than flesh-creeping horror. Still, there is something satisfyingly gloomy in the final words: “…he was persuaded he could know no happiness but in the society of one with whom he could for ever indulge the melancholy that had taken possession of his soul.” Now that is gothic!A book for over-sensitive princesses to swoon to while the rest of us have a good laugh!
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