A Sicilian Romance

Ferdinand is the male protagonist of the novel and the chief explorer of those parts of the castle that are believed to be haunted by supernatural spirits. Ferdinand is one of the most dynamically described characters in the novel as Julia’s male counterpart who is sensitive, empathetic, and rational. His efforts to comfort and assist those he loves initiate some of the most important plot points in the novel.

It is Ferdinand whose birthday ball is the occasion where Julia and Hippolitus meet, and it is he who plays matchmaker to help them realize that both loves the other. Throughout the novel, Ferdinand’s efforts to help Julia escape the tyranny of the marquis and then the Abate demonstrate his belief that she should be able to decide her fate for herself. He also sets out to uncover what could be making the noises that are coming from the south wing of the castle. Ferdinand, whose minds is “highly superior to the general influence of superstition” (85), repeatedly uses his reason and his senses throughout his ordeals in damp and terrifying passages. When the marquis relates a ghost story to explain why the wing was abandoned, Ferdinand is more upset about being the descendant of a murderer than about the idea of a supernatural spirit. He epitomizes The Use of Rational Thought to Explore the Supernatural.

Ferdinand is also something of a martyr throughout the novel, suffering in quiet dignity when his own father locks him in a dungeon. He even refuses to escape when a servant leaves his cell unlocked because he “disdained to involve an innocent man in destruction” (86). He is sacrificed and left for dead when Hippolitus and Julia escape the banditti, and when he goes in search of them after his father’s death, he will not even borrow a cloak in the rain, refusing to “expose a servant to a hardship he would not himself endure” (171). He therefore embodies the qualities of a classical stoic hero.

Thus, Ferdinand, like Julia, represents a duality: he is a strong, rational man unafraid of physical suffering, who is also an ally to independent womanhood and to equal treatment for those of lower social rank. When he is designated sixth Marquis de Mazzini at the end of the novel, it emphasizes a tone of hopefulness for a future in which he is a better lord than his father.

Madame de Menon, whose first name readers never learn, is the woman who raises Julia and Emilia after their mother’s apparent death. She was their mother Louisa’s best friend and suffered tragedy in her youth: She married her brother’s best friend, who later killed her brother, whom Louisa loved. This tragic story ultimately led to Madame’s widowhood and to Louisa’s marriage to the marquis.

Skilled in the arts and the finer points of womanhood, Madame represents ideals of honor and refinement in women, whose integrity is “not to be questioned with impunity” and whose “delicacy” makes her quick to perceive and understand the motivations of others (65). As a model of virtue, Madame (along with Louisa) is a foil for Maria de Vellorno: It is because of Maria’s indiscretions that Madame leaves the castle for the monastery. Because of her virtuous decision, she is in the right place at the right time to rescue Julia from isolation in the woods and bring her to the monastery, where she then uses her wits to convince the Abate to protect Julia. As the primary mother figure in the novel, she offers protection, wisdom, and love within a setting and a plot marked by fear, violence, and selfishness.

The primary antagonist of the novel, the marquis is the archetypal villain, used to represent the tyranny of patriarchy over his daughters and even his son. Radcliffe uses direct characterization to introduce his faults in the very first pages of the novel: He is “a man of voluptuous and imperious character [...] whose heart was dead to paternal tenderness” (3), and whose arrogant nature was a torment to his sweet and docile first wife, Louisa.

The marquis is now under the spell of Maria de Vellorno, who misses no chance to manipulate him to do her bidding or have adulterous affairs. Throughout the novel, the marquis demonstrates no redeeming qualities, attempting to marry his daughter for the sake of a powerful alliance, lying to his son and locking him in a dungeon, and threatening servants and monks, whose low station he derides and disrespects. The marquis’s threats to marry Julia to the Duke de Luovo motivate the plot, and his pursuit puts the lives of Julia and Hippolitus in danger.

The marquis is not a wholly static character, as he undergoes two rapid realizations leading to change at the end of the novel. After discovering the infidelity of Maria de Vellorno, he rejects the dissolute life they led together–but only to consecrate his life to the pursuit of power. To this end, he determines to kill his imprisoned first wife so that he can wed Julia to the duke after all. It is only when poisoned by Maria that he sees his death as a punishment for the way he led his life and repents. 

Maria de Vellorno is one of the novel’s antagonists and a foil to the virtuous female characters in the rest of the story. She is an archetype of the evil stepmother and represents vice, jealousy, and deceit: “She allowed herself a free indulgence in the most licentious pleasures, yet conducted herself with an art so exquisite as to elude discovery, and even suspicion” (9). She manipulates the marquis throughout the relationship, making him leave his daughters in Sicily to live a life of luxury in Naples, pursuing love interests half her own age, and upbraiding the marquis for his failure to apprehend Julia after her escape.

Maria de Vellorno is an evil force throughout the plot, contriving to keep Julia and Hippolitus apart and to punish any who might harm her. She blames everyone but herself for her actions, including when the marquis stabs Hippolitus as he tries to escape with Julia and when he catches her with another man. She goes to her death without redemption; though the marquis is given the opportunity to repent, even in death Maria is the manipulator, poisoning him and leaving a note to torment and blame him for her own actions. She reflects the story’s moral that people without pure hearts are not rewarded.

Hippolitus is the love interest of the story, but he spends much of the plot tending to family matters in Naples, presumed dead from sword fights, or recovering from his wounds. When he is initially on the scene, he spends most of his time moping to Ferdinand about his love for Julia, which he assumes without reason to be unrequited. Through his unassuming hopes and his friendship with Ferdinand, he is allied with the women of the novel and against the tyranny of the other men. His goodness and female allyship is further demonstrated by his sister Cornelia’s story that he insisted that she be able to marry for love. When Hippolitus rushes into the banditti’s cave to rescue a woman unknown to him and discovers that it is Julia, he is shown to be both selfless and brave, and thus he receives a narrative reward of the lovely, intelligent, virtuous Julia.

These signals of “goodness” make him a flat and static character, who exists primarily to move the plot along. Loving Hippolitus provides Julia with the impetus to escape from her father’s house, and the news that he is still alive further motivates her to escape the monastery and life as a nun. In a happily-ever-after deus ex machina (a plot device by which a seemingly unsolvable problem is solved), it is Hippolitus who miraculously frees Julia and Louisa.

Along with the marquis, the Duke de Luovo and the Abate represent male authority and The Oppression of Women in Patriarchal Society. They are guided by the belief that women can only be daughters, wives, or nuns, and their tyranny is juxtaposed with the gentleness and wisdom of Ferdinand and Hippolitus throughout. In these characters, Radcliffe encapsulates the dangers of being ruled by passion and ambition, heightening the contrast between vice and virtue. Of the duke, she writes, “[t]he love of power was his ruling passion” (49), and he “approached [Julia] with an air of proud condescension;” (52). The Abate, meanwhile, is incapable of understanding honesty or pity; he is a man whose avarice is only exceeded by his pride. Though both demonstrate moments where they are capable of reasonable thought, they frequently let their passions get the better of their judgment.

Cornelia, Emilia, and Louisa all represent what Radcliffe describes as “feminine softness, a tender timidity” (6). Though Emilia is sister to Julia and Ferdinand, she is a secondary character throughout the novel, existing mainly to swoon at creepy noises, weep when her sister runs away, and live happily ever after once the action is over. Emilia “inherited much of her mother’s disposition. She had a mild and sweet temper” (3), and Louisa is no more dynamic than her daughter. She is the good and virtuous wife thrown over for the evil vices of Maria de Vellorno, who will take no action to save herself even when given the opportunity to stand near a window and see her children. Cornelia, too, is associated with purity and softness, being so devastated by the apparent death of her intended that she committed her life to God as a nun. Cornelia’s friendship with Julia largely serves to characterize Julia in the novel, cementing Julia’s virtue and emphasizing her empathetic and caring nature.