The Castle of Otranto

While the novella’s strong male characters pursue power, Walpole’s weak and often terrified female characters mostly cater to the whims of the men around them.

Manfred often uses women as pawns in his power plays. His marriage to Hippolita is abusive and lacks affection, as he is contemptuous of his wife’s inability to give him more than one son. Manfred also disdains his daughter Matilda because she is not a male heir, and he is happy to offer her in marriage to the much older Frederic to cement his claim on Otranto. Finally, Manfred has little sympathy for Isabella, whom he tries to rape after demanding that she marry him so he can sire more sons. Manfred’s counterpoint, Hippolita, embodies the demure, pious behavior usually prized in women in patriarchal societies. Despite Manfred’s villainy, she readily supports and serves her husband, even when he decides to divorce her. Manfred does not doubt that Hippolita will obey his orders for the good of the family: “presuming on the unshaken submission of Hippolita, he flattered himself that she would not only acquiesce with patience to a divorce, but would obey, if it was his pleasure, in endeavouring to persuade Isabella to give him her hand” (29-30).

Although Isabella seems to be a less subservient example of womanhood, her final fate reveals that even the novella’s idea of a happy ending undercuts female agency. At first, Isabella is at the mercy of those around her: Her guardians accept Manfred’s bribes in exchange for affiancing her to Conrad; later, after Conrad’s death, Manfred prepares to marry Isabella himself against her wishes. However, when Manfred expresses his intent to marry Isabella and have sex with her that night, she flees to the underground passages of the castle hoping to escape to the sanctuary of the Church of St. Nicholas—a burst of rebellious activity that the novella validates. Nevertheless, the church is only as safe as long as Father Jerome, another powerful male figure, doesn’t resort to using Isabella as a bargaining chip—something he could do when Manfred offers to spare Theodore’s life if Father Jerome, Theodore’s father, turns over Isabella. Additionally, Manfred promises Frederic, Isabella’s father, that he will allow Matilda, his daughter, her hand in marriage if Frederic, in turn, promises Isabella.

Matilda demonstrates the most strength of any of the female characters in the novel. Although Matilda faints at the news that Theodore has been sentenced to death, she proactively rescues him from the tower and sets him free. To do this, “Matilda disengaged herself from her women” (65)—a description that carries a double meaning. Not only does Matilda physically walk away from her ladies in waiting, but she also moves beyond the behavior expected of women in Otranto. Matilda believes that her cause warrants her disobeying her father: “though filial duty and womanly modesty condemn the step I am taking, yet holy charity, surmounting all other ties, justifies this act” (65-66). Even Matilda’s weakest moment—when her father stabs and kills her, thinking that she is Isabella—turns out to have a dramatic effect on the novella’s most powerful male figure. Matilda’s death leads to the downfall of Manfred’s reign at Otranto, and it finally inspires this seemingly shameless man to feel remorse and renounce his worldly possessions by becoming a monk.