Radcliffe’s Empowered Feminine

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Radcliffe’s Empowered Feminine:

Masculinity and Femininity in The Mysteries

of Udolpho and The Italian

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Contents:

Introduction 4

Masculinity and Male Sensibility 8

Radcliffe’s Empowering Sublime 21

Conclusion 34

Bibliography 36

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Abstract

My dissertation attempts to show how Ann Radcliffe tries to

empower her female readers through her use of sensibility and the

sublime in her narratives. By using sensibility to emasculate her male

characters, Radcliffe is able to challenge patriarchal structures and

question gender roles within society. In addition, I aim to demonstrate

the connection between the two novels to show the development of

Radcliffe’s gender politics in The Mysteries of Udolpho and The

Italian, something that has been somewhat overlooked by Bondhus,

Mullan, and Miles in other contemporary scholarship on Radcliffe. I

argue that both novels act as a set of stages which illustrate Radcliffe’s

gender politics, by conveying the way in which she uses the sublime to

empower her female protagonists. Moreover, my dissertation defines

sensibility and the sublime in the eighteenth century, providing an

understanding of how both men and women were perceived in society.

It also discusses the concept of masculinity and how Radcliffe’s

heroines, Emily and Ellena, are given the male characteristics of sense

and reason to recover from their sensibilities. I conclude that through

her female character’s ability to rescue themselves from danger, rather

than relying on the typical Gothic hero, Radcliffe is able to challenge

the idea of chivalric fantasy in order to, ultimately, empower her female

readers.

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Introduction

‘If Horace Walpole was the father of the Gothic novel, Ann Radcliffe

was certainly its mother.’1 Ann Radcliffe, one of the most acclaimed

and influential female authors of the Gothic genre, gained this title

through her way of depicting women in Gothic fiction as strong and

independent; and is a crucial figure to what we now consider to be the

Female Gothic. This Female Gothic genre is defined by Ellen Moers

as, ‘the work that women writers have done in the literary mode since

the eighteenth century’2, which ‘always has something to say about the

woman in question’.3

The Female gothic has been re-defined as a genre which tries to

engage with gender issues and inspires women readers to become

independent, and negotiate their position in a patriarchal society. I aim

to examine each of Radcliffe’s male and female protagonists in The

Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian, and show how they are presented

through Radcliffe’s use of sensibility and the sublime, in order to

achieve female empowerment.

In the eighteenth century, novel reading was dis-reputable

among females as the Gothic novel was a world of fantasy that was

thought to excite women’s sensibilities. In Fordyce’s Sermons to young

women, ‘The magic power of fancy, set to work by vanity, ambition,

and hope, creates a kind of world within, to which she fondly refers

1Norton Rictor, Gothic Readings: The First Wave, 1764-1840 (London: Leicester University Press, 2000), p 40. 2 Wallace Diana and Andrew Smith (ed.), The Female Gothic: New Directions (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), p.43. 3 Ibid. p.47.

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that without, as always subordinate, and chiefly subservient.’ 4 This

statement exemplifies that ‘The magic power of fancy’ or ‘the world

within’, were dangerous ideas that would question the ‘subservient’

attitude that women were expected to have within patriarchal society.

Fordyce also refers that, for women:

Manly exercises are never graceful; that in them a tone and

figure, as well as an air and deportment, of the masculine kind,

are always forbidding; and that men of sensibility desire in every

woman soft features, and a flowing voice, a form not robust, and

a demeanour delicate and gentle.5

These qualities form the stereotypical women of the Eighteenth

century, perceived by their male counterparts as being ‘delicate and

gentle’. Radcliffe attempts to challenge the idea that women have a

delicate nature in her narratives, by presenting her heroines as

embodying masculine virtues of strength and independence.

Contemporary scholarship discussing Radcliffe’s gender politics can be

seen in Claudia Johnson’s Equivocal beings politics, gender and

sentimentality in the 1790s Wollstonecraft, Radcliffe, Burney, Austen.

Johnson states that:

In her later novels, accordingly, legitimate sensitivity is so

exclusively the prerogative of men that female affectivity is

4 Fordyce, James D.D, Sermons to Young Women (London, 1766). P. 235 5 Ibid. p. 233.

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denounced, and the formerly male virtues of self-command and

steadiness are required of every good girl. Radcliffe’s heroines

must thus be paragons of passive feminine virtue as well as

exemplars of an older-styled masculinity.6

This piece of contemporary scholarship conveys that it is the women

who become passive and take on traditional masculine characteristics.

This is because men are full of sensibility, embodying the ‘passive

feminine virtue’ (of sensibility) that women at the time were associated

with. This ‘passive feminine virtue’ is delineated by John Mullan in

Sentiment and Sociability: ‘It is true that in women, hysteric symptoms

occur more frequently, and are often much more sudden and violent,

than the hypochondriac in men’7. In Sentiment and Sociability, John

Mullan denotes a clear connection between women and the concept of

sensibility, in that ‘sensibility is an investment in a particular version

of the feminine-tearful, palpitating, embodying virtue whilst

susceptible to all the vicissitudes of ‘feeling’’. 8 The way in which

women were perceived as ‘embodying virtue’ and ‘susceptible to all

the vicissitudes of ‘feeling’’ is suggestive that women were seen as

emotionally fragile or ‘peculiarly ‘delicate’’9, and as a result lacked the

strength and ability to reason, which, it was assumed, men have.

6 Johnson, Claudia L. Equivocal beings politics, gender and sentimentality in the 1790s Wollstonecraft, Radcliffe, Burney, Austen. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1995, p.97. 7 Mullan, John. ‘Hypochondria and Hysteria: Sensibility and the Physicians’. In: Sentiment and Sociability: The Language of Feeling in the

Eighteenth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. p. 217. 8 Ibid. p.218. 9 Ibid. p.217.

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Ann Van Sant refers to the term of sensibility as ‘an organic

sensitivity dependent on brain and nerves and underlying a) delicate

moral and aesthetic perception; b) acuteness of feeling, both emotional

and physical; and c) susceptibility to delicate passional arousal’10 ,

which ‘are characteristic of women’.11 This illustrates that women were

commonly associated with the notion of sensibility, and it is this

perception of women that Radcliffe tries to change through her writing.

Robert Miles claims that, ‘For Radcliffe, sensibility was not a fashion

accessory. On the contrary, it was an important fictional instrument,

one that expanded the scope of her writing.’12 I will focus on two of

Radcliffe’s novels, The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian, as both

represent the beginning and end of her literary career, and clearly show

the development of her female protagonists in regards to controlling

their sensibilities, with intent to potentially empower her female

readers.

I will begin by discussing how Radcliffe participates in debate

about sensibility, in order to question the concepts of reason and

passion in the eighteenth century, in regards to her male characters in

both novels. In the second chapter, I will show how Radcliffe tries to

empower women by bestowing them with the sublime, focusing

specifically on her female protagonists, Emily St Aubert in The

Mysteries of Udolpho, and Ellena in The Italian. In this discussion I

will attempt to demonstrate that Radcliffe is trying to question

10 Van Sant, Ann Jessie Eighteenth-Century Sensibility and the Novel: The Senses in Social Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2004, p.1. 11 Ibid 12 Miles, Robert Ann Radcliffe: The Great Enchantress. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995. P.152.

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patriarchal structures that define femininity by using different

techniques to empower her female characters. It is through her use of

sensibility and the sublime that she encourages her female readers to

be more in control of their sensibilities, in an attempt to change these

patriarchal values in society. As a result, each of Radcliffe’s’ novels

form part of a ‘literary mode’, depicting women in different ways by

using techniques in her narratives that highlight her characters’

sensibilities; but are always seen to empower the heroines.

Masculinity and Male Sensibility

In Ann Radcliffe the Great Enchantress, Robert Miles highlights that

Radcliffe’s, The Italian, ‘was a final, considered text, one putting her

earlier work in a measured, self-conscious perspective.’ 13 This ‘self-

conscious perspective’ refers to Radcliffe’s last novel The Italian, as it

can be seen to differ from her first novel. In The Mysteries of Udolpho,

Radcliffe focuses on the portrayal of Emily St Aubert through her use

of the sublime, whereas in The Italian, Radcliffe highlights her male

character’s sensibilities rather than that of her heroine, Ellena. This

shift in focus emasculates her male characters, and in turn places the

heroine in a position of empowerment. In this chapter, I will attempt to

show how Radcliffe is challenging the idea of gender roles in a

patriarchal society, and consider how she uses sensibility to

disempower her male characters. I will focus specifically on,

13 Miles, Robert Ann Radcliffe: The Great Enchantress. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995. P.149-150.

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Valancourt, Montoni, Vivaldi and Schedoni showing the way in which

Radcliffe’s narrative techniques emasculate her male characters in

order to present her female protagonists as more psychologically

powerful.

In order to understand the complexity of the gender politics that

informs Radcliffe’s fiction, I will begin by discussing the concept of

masculinity in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

According to John Tosh, masculinity undertook a ‘transition from a

genteel masculinity grounded in land ownership to a bourgeois

masculinity attuned to the market.’14 From the mid eighteenth century,

‘land ownership’, wealth, and title were associated with the idea of

being a man. Men were also associated with the concepts of sense and

reason, and would rarely express or convey emotion as it was

considered to oppose the idea of masculinity. Angus Mclaren

demonstrates this idea when discussing how men were perceived in the

late eighteenth century:

To have a “man to man talk”, we are told, was to speak directly;

“to be one’s own man” was to be in full possession of one’s

faculties; to “play the man” was to act courageously; to be “the

man” was to be the one in charge.15

14Tosh, John Manliness and Masculinities in Nineteenth-Century Britain. London: Pearson Education Ltd., 2005, p. 63. 15 Mclaren, Angus. The Trials of Masculinity: Policing Sexual Boundaries, 1870-1930. London: The University of Chicago Press Ltd. 1997.

p.1.

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If the idea of masculinity then ‘was to be the one in charge’, it is

implied that the individual had to have control over themselves, and

surely that would include control of one’s emotions. If this is the case,

then the idea of masculinity is associated with emotional, as well as

physical control, and it is this lack of control which emasculates her

male characters, and can be seen to potentially empower her female

readers. Tosh continues to explain that ‘Household authority and sexual

predation were in this sense facets of hegemonic masculinity, and they

persisted through substantial changes in the class formation between

1750 and 1850.’16 If we relate this idea of ‘land ownership’ and ‘sexual

predation’ to Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, we can see these

ideals implemented through Montoni and his ownership of the castle,

and Count Morano with his sexual predation towards Emily and her

hand in marriage. Radcliffe challenges contemporary expectations of

men’s gender roles in society by creating male characters who have

less control over themselves and their emotions than their female

counterparts. Her questioning of dominant modes of masculinity

contributes to the emasculation of her villainous heroes in The

Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian.

Consequently, Radcliffe attempts to empower her female

characters by challenging the gendering of sensibility as feminine,

through the creation of male characters who are as irrational and

sentimental as women were believed to be.

16 Tosh, John Manliness and Masculinities in Nineteenth-Century Britain. London: Pearson Education Ltd. 2005. P. 68.

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This is evident in The Mysteries of Udolpho with Montoni upon

his return to Venice with Emily, who is portrayed as lacking control

over his sensibility:

He delighted in the energies of the passions; the difficulties and

tempests of life, which wreck the happiness of others, roused and

strengthened all the powers of his mind, and afforded him the

highest enjoyments, of which his nature was capable.17

The utterance ‘delighted in the energies of the passions’, is suggestive

that Montoni is also defined by an excess of emotion that was deemed

as problematic for women in eighteenth-century conduct literature, and

it is this emotional revelation that illustrates that he opposes the

Augustan concept of reason over passion.

Eighteenth century sensibility was governed by reason which

Hume claims ‘is, and ought to be the slave of the passions, and can

never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.’18 He

refers to the concept of reason as a ‘slave’ which suggests that the

passions have a powerful effect on the ‘object’19. In other words, that

reason is an inferior concept that has little, if any, influence to counter

the effects of the passions. Ellis in contrast, states that ‘moral

judgments need reason to inform the passions as to the existence and

condition of the object considered’20. This implies that reason is a

17 Radcliffe, Ann The Mysteries of Udolpho. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966, p.182. 18 Ibid. p.13. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid.

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concept that does have influence over passion, as it can ‘inform the

passions as to the existence and condition of the object.’ If we relate

this to Montoni in The Mysteries of Udolpho, it could be argued that

when Montoni delights ‘in the energies of the passions’ he is

completely vulnerable to its effects, as ‘reason cannot judge between

warring passions’. It is through Montoni’s impaired reason, and his

‘highest enjoyments’ of the passions that disempowers his character, as

he is presented as willingly embracing them without attempting any

kind of moral judgement. It could be argued that through Montoni’s

character, Radcliffe is trying to teach her female readers of the

importance of cultivating their reasoning capabilities to allow for moral

judgment. Therefore, this idea could be seen as a response to

contemporary concerns about reading and Gothic fiction being morally

detrimental to the female reader, because of its excitation of feminine

sensibility.

Radcliffe’s Gothic hero Valancourt is portrayed as similarly

weak in regards to his control of the passions: ‘A sigh, a tear, so sweet,

he wish’d not to control.’ 21 This opening verse exudes sensibility

which emasculates Valancourt. Both words, ‘sigh’ and ‘tear’ suggest

sadness, a feeling that both Valancourt and Emily experience when

they are separated later in the novel. It could be argued that Radcliffe

uses this verse as an implication that Valancourt has a tendency

towards sentimental weakness and, similar to Montoni, does not have

the ‘developed reason’22 that Emily is shown to have.

21 Ibid. p.35. 22 Ibid. p.130.

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Furthermore, Valancourt’s letter to Emily confirms Radcliffe’s

indications regarding his lack of control over his sensibilities, showing

how his actions are driven by emotion rather than reason: ‘I sit lost in

reverie – I endeavour to see you dimly through my tears, in all the

heaven of peace and innocence, such as you then appeared to me’.23 By

his own admission, ‘through my tears’, we begin to picture Valancourt

sobbing over Emily’s absence showing that he embraces his emotions

rather than controlling them. This immediately emasculates him in

comparison to Emily, who appears to control her sensibilities much

more effectively through her investment in fortitude and the education

received from her father at the beginning of the novel. ‘Above all, my

dear Emily…do not indulge in the pride of fine feeling, the romantic

error of amiable minds. Those, who really possess sensibility, ought

early to be taught, that it is a dangerous quality’.24 This investment in

fortitude enables Emily to assess a situation throughout the novel by

preventing her from falling back upon her sensibilities.

Bondhus, who reinforces the idea of the disempowerment of

Radcliffe’s male characters, similarly argues ‘that sensibility is actually

being interrogated in men in Radcliffe’s novels, as it is the heroes, the

men of feeling, who are ultimately weakened by their embracement of

this philosophy.’ 25 Moreover, by continuing to evoke his feelings

towards Emily, Valancourt is confirmed to be one of ‘the men of

feeling’ in the novel. ‘I lean on the wall of the terrace, where we

23 Ibid. p.193. 24 Ibid. p.79. 25 Bondhus, Charlie ‘Sublime Patriarchs and the problems of the New Middle Class in Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho and The

Italian’. Gothic Studies, Vol. 12, 1, 2010, p.20.

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together watched the rapid current of the Garonne below, while I

described the wild scenery about its source, but thought only of you.26

His continuing admission of his feelings for Emily implies that, like

Montoni, he is too ‘delighted in the energies of the passions’, a level of

sensibility which ‘in period context was thought to have ‘feminized the

nation, given women undue prominence, and emasculated men’.’ 27

Radcliffe gives Valancourt this ‘level of sensibility’ in The Mysteries

of Udolpho, in an attempt to challenge the idea of patriarchal

dominance in that period and giving her female characters a sense of

superiority, by having more control over their sensibilities.

As a villain, Montoni is portrayed as more dynamic character

than Valancourt through his ownership of the castle at Udolpho and

through his manipulation of the intended marriage of Emily and Count

Morano. Therefore, when Radcliffe writes, that it ‘roused…all the

powers of his mind’ his strength of character is diminished. The word

‘roused’ implies that he is oblivious to the fact that he has lost all reason

and suggests that he is overwhelmed with sensibility. This shows that

both the male and female characters in Radcliffe’s novels are

susceptible to their sensibilities, and it is in the way that they protect

themselves from such susceptibility where they differ. Emily uses

fortitude but Montoni lacks this power of mind. This is because he is

too materialistic and is defined by his vices of greed and desire for

power, which demonstrates the change in the power dynamic between

26 Radcliffe, Ann The Mysteries of Udolpho. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966, p.193. 27 Bondhus, Charlie ‘Sublime Patriarchs and the problems of the New Middle Class in Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho and The


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the two characters, presenting Emily as psychologically superior. In

doing this, Radcliffe conveys Montoni and Emily as equally

‘susceptible to all the vicissitudes of ‘feeling’’ which, supposedly,

cause the ‘tearful, palpitating’ ‘version of the feminine’ showing

Radcliffe using gender politics to empower the feminine.

In contrast to The Mysteries of Udolpho, Radcliffe’s writing

style in The Italian differs greatly with regards to how she chooses to

evoke sensibility. In The Mysteries of Udolpho, Radcliffe focuses on

Emily’s control of her sensibilities to empower her female readers,

whereas in The Italian, ‘the last novel produced by Radcliffe’28, the

focus shifts onto her male characters rather than her female protagonist

Ellena. By the time Radcliffe writes The Italian, her readers already

know that Radcliffe’s heroines are defined by fortitude, and as such,

this allows Radcliffe to shift her focus onto the portrayal of her male

characters. By focusing more on her male characters, Radcliffe is able

to give a sense of female empowerment by presenting the male

characters as lacking fortitude; as Robert Miles indicates further:

The Italian is a different kind of text. In it the heroine is not

overly predisposed to the ‘spectral’, is not given to ‘superstition’,

to the imaginative excesses of sensibility. As we shall see, the

hero Vivaldi occupies the ‘feminine’ role of fantasist. The

difference is crucial.29

28 Miles, Robert Ann Radcliffe: The Great Enchantress. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995, p.149. 29 Ibid. p. 151.

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In The Italian, Vivaldi’s gaze towards Ellena when he admires her on

the balcony at the beginning of the novel, conveys how he ‘occupies

the ‘feminine’ role of the fanatasist’ which Miles underlines as the

crucial ‘difference’ between the two texts: ‘The sweetness and fine

expression of her voice attracted his attention to her figure, which had

a distinguished air of delicacy and grace; but her face was concealed in

her veil.’30 After ‘the breeze from the water caught the veil’ Vivaldi

witnesses ‘a countenance more touchingly beautiful than he had dared

to image.’ 31 His ‘admiration’ 32 of Ellena’s beauty indicates that

Vivaldi is experiencing emotion and has succumbed to the effects of

Ellena’s beauty. This lack of resistance to his sensibilities emasculates

him when compared to Ellena and presents her as a superior character,

which in turn, could empower her female readers. Radcliffe uses

sensibility in both The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian to

emasculate her heroes, Valancourt and Vivaldi. In addition, Radcliffe

also emasculates the male villains, as we can see in The Italian with

Radcliffe’s chief villain Schedoni.

Schedoni, is another male character who is portrayed as

emotionally weak, despite Radcliffe’s depiction at the beginning of the

novel that he is a strong and influential character. It isn’t until later on

in the novel when Schedoni believes he is Ellena’s father, that we see

his emotions overcome him:

30 Radcliffe, Ann The Italian. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. p.5. 31 Ibid. p.6. 32 Ibid.

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Ellena’s terror began to yield to astonishment, and this emotion

increased, when, Schedoni approaching her, she perceived tears

swell in his eyes, which were fixt on her’s, and his countenance

soften from the wild disorder that had marked it. Still he could

not speak.33

Through ‘Ellena’s terror’, Schedoni is continuously described as

having an intimidating presence despite his lack of emotional control.

However, Ellena is able to look past Schedoni’s figure when she sees

‘tears swell in his eyes’. If we compare this to Emily in The Mysteries

of Udolpho, who would have perhaps given into her sensibilities at the

sight of something as terrifying, then we would expect Ellena, in The

Italian, to react in a similar way. By focusing more on how her male

characters control their sensibilities, it prevents this thematic repetition

in her narrative which is purposefully used to inspire her female readers

to question patriarchal structures in society as the female gender has

become empowered in comparison. In addition, the control that Ellena

demonstrates in not giving into her sensibilities despite her ‘terror’

towards Schedoni, shows how Ellena’s character is in control of her

sensibilities than Emily was shown to be in The Mysteries of Udolpho

which, shows that in The Mysteries of Udolpho Radcliffe focuses on

Emily’s struggles with her excited sensibility, whereas in The Italian

Ellena is portrayed from the beginning as being able to master her

sensibilities through fortitude. Therefore, the female readers of The

33 Ibid. p.236.

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Italian are expected to know how to control emotion, as this was

demonstrated by Emily in The Mysteries of Udolpho. This shows that

Radcliffe targets the same readership in people that are familiar with

her work, her type of characters and how her novels act as different

lessons to her female readers.

Radcliffe continues to use sensibility to de-masculinise her

male characters, for example Schedoni in The Italian, to empower her

female characters. We see this through the ‘tears’ that Ellena saw swell

in his eyes and his ‘softened countenance’. Both examples show that,

despite his powerful figure, he has difficulty in controlling his emotions

involving Ellena, who he believes, at this point in the novel, to be his

daughter: ‘here a malevolent patriarch appears to be the heroine’s

father until the final revelation discloses the true one to be benevolent

and paternal, if also usurped.’34 The lack of Schedoni’s emotional

control not only portrays him as susceptible to his sensibilities, but

empowers Ellena as Radcliffe has made her Schedoni’s emotional

weakness providing her with some influence over his emotions;

empowering her character.

Furthermore, Schedoni’s experience of his journey through the

mountains with Ellena is another example that demonstrates how

Radcliffe uses sensibility to emasculate her male characters. ‘Darkness

now confounded every object, and no domestic light twinkling,

however distantly, through the gloom, gave signal of security and

comfort.’35 Here, Radcliffe changes her technique of terror through

34 Miles, Robert Ann Radcliffe: The Great Enchantress. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995, p.150. 35 Radcliffe, Ann The Italian. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. p.272.

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obscurity that she used to highlight Ellena’s reaction towards

Schendoni. Instead, Radcliffe uses horror rather than terror, with the

lexis such as ‘gloomy’, and, ‘darkness’, both of which give

connotations of fear of the unknown suggesting that Schedoni is afraid

of his surroundings. In her essay, On the Supernatural in Poetry,

Radcliffe identifies the difference between horror and terror, stating

that:

Terror and Horror are so far opposite that the first expands the

soul, and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life; the other

contracts, freezes and nearly annihilates them ... And where lies

the difference between horror and terror, but in the uncertainty

and obscurity that accompany the first, respecting the dreading

evil?36

Radcliffe writes that ‘uncertainty and obscurity’ are states ‘that

accompany’ terror, and it is this fear of the unknown that is produced

when Schedoni is travelling through the mountains with Ellena, where

it is implied that he is afraid. ‘They descended dejectedly into the

hollow of the mountains, and found themselves once more immerged

in woods.’ The contrast of the words ‘hollow’ and ‘immerged’ mirrors

Schedoni’s mental state, when he was once able to resist conveying his

emotions to the state in which he has become horrified. This is further

illustrated with the adverb ‘dejectedly’ which suggests that the

36 E. J. Clery and Robert Miles, eds, Gothic Documents: A Sourcebook 1700-1820, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000,

p. 168.

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travellers do not want to continue into the woods as they are horrified

of their surroundings. Moreover, the way in which Schedoni ‘called the

peasant to his side, and bade him keep abreast of him’37 reinforces the

idea that, similarly to Vivaldi, his actions are driven by emotion rather

than reason. By showing that he needs the ‘peasant’ to make him feel

safe, it suggests that Schedoni cannot continue without the peasant who

is acting as a form of protection as they venture further into the woods.

Radcliffe uses horror rather than terror to emasculate Schedoni, as

horror paralyses the hero who cannot act on the situation. Terror on the

other hand, as we see with Ellena, only temporarily takes over which

enables her, eventually, to master her sensibility. By using horror,

Radcliffe is preventing Schedoni from mastering his sensibilities, and

thus conveys a sense of power to Ellena’s character.

To summarise, the differing narrative styles between The

Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian act as a set of stages conveying

Radcliffe’s attempt at challenging gender roles in society by relating to

sensibility. In both novels, Radcliffe portrays Valancourt, Montoni,

Vivaldi and Schedoni as ‘the men of feeling’38 in the novel through

their conscious expression of emotion which was seen to be feminine,

in a society that was dominated by men. By using sensibility as a

technique to emasculate her male characters, Radcliffe is able to inspire

her female readers by changing how women were perceived in gothic

fiction through the empowerment of her female protagonists.

37 Radcliffe, Ann The Italian. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. p.272. 38 Bondhus, Charlie ‘Sublime Patriarchs and the problems of the New Middle Class in Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho and The


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Radcliffe’s Empowering Sublime

Whereas Radcliffe emasculates her male characters by

depicting them as men of sensibility, she purposefully uses the sublime

in order to further empower her female protagonists. In The Italian,

Radcliffe uses the sublime as a technique in the narrative to empower

her female protagonist, Ellena, by defying the conventions of the

patriarchal society she finds herself in. I aim to show how Radcliffe

uses the sublime as a tool in her narrative to empower her heroines by

using their ability to reason. One definition of the sublime is given by

Edmund Burke:

Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and

danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is

conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner

analogous of terror, is a source of the sublime.39

Radcliffe uses Burke’s idea of terror as ‘a source of the sublime’, on

her female protagonists to create a sense of female empowerment. In

difference to using horror to emasculate her male characters, as

previously discussed, she uses her heroines’ ability to recover from the

‘terror’ they experience through the sublime as a way of empowering

her female readers.

39 Burke, Edmund A Philosophical Enquiry into the origins of our ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

1990, p.36.

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By providing her female protagonists with the ability to recover

and regain reason, Radcliffe shows how modern her heroines are in

comparison to her male characters, who still try to uphold chivalric

values that have no place in a modern world. According to Bondhus,

Social commentators at the end of the eighteenth century

believed that sensibility was problematic for women insofar as it

would supposedly inspire them to live within a realm of chivalric

fantasy, rather than satisfactorily fulfilling their roles as wives

and mothers.40

In this chapter, I will focus on Emily and Ellena’s experiences of the

sublime to show how Radcliffe can be seen to challenge gender roles

in society and empower her female readers.

In the early parts of the novel, we get the sense that Emily’s

misfortunes are just beginning when her father receives a letter from

M. Quensel stating that he is financially ruined: ‘A variety of

circumstances have concurred to ruin him, and – I am ruined with

him.’41 At this point, the security of Emily’s future is being taken from

her, first through the death of her mother, the loss of her financial

prospects through M. Quensel, and the imminent death of her father.

This de-contextualisation is expected in the Gothic novel, where

rationality and judgment are removed from the heroine which enhances

40 Bondhus, Charlie ‘Sublime Patriarchs and the problems of the New Middle Class in Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho and The

Italian’. Gothic Studies, Vol. 12, 1, 2010, p.19. 41Radcliffe, Ann The Mysteries of Udolpho. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966, p.59.

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their receptivity towards the sublime. It is this ‘sensitive,

impressionable connection that a sentimental individual like Ellena or

Emily has with the world, combined with the emotionality that

characterizes sensibility’42 that ‘logically implies a greater receptivity

to the sublime’43. This sense of misfortune that Radcliffe indicates

early on in the novel, is reinforced by Robert Miles, author of Ann

Radcliffe The Great Enchantress. He states that ‘Emily’s weakness

links back to St Aubert’s death-bed warnings to be beware of excessive

passion in all its forms, including its most beguiling shape:

sensibility’. 44 It is this warning towards ‘excessive passion’ that

Radcliffe is trying to convey through Emily’s observation of the

sublime, to create a sense of female empowerment.

In the typical Gothic novel, we expect Emily St Aubert to give

in to her emotions and become the female stereotypical woman of

Gothic fiction, helpless and in need of rescue from a male protagonist.

Instead, Radcliffe uses the sublime to empower Emily’s character,

despite the distress she has endured following the death of her mother

and her father’s ill health:

There was something so gloomy and desolate in the appearance

of this avenue, and it’s lonely silence, that Emily almost

shuddered as she passed along; and recollecting the manner in

which the peasant had mentioned the chateau, she gave a

42Bondhus, Charlie ‘Sublime Patriarchs and the problems of the New Middle Class in Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho and The

Italian’. Gothic Studies, Vol. 12, 1, 2010, p.17. 43 Ibid. p.17. 44 Miles, Robert Ann Radcliffe: The Great Enchantress. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995, p.130.

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mysterious meaning to his words, such as she had not suspected

when he uttered them.45

Radcliffe’s lexical choice of, ‘gloomy’, has connotations of darkness,

which implies that Emily cannot see much of her surroundings as she

advances towards the cabin with her father, creating a fear of the

unknown. It is Emily’s curiosity that is generated through the idea of

the unknown (obscurity), which creates her feeling of terror.

Radcliffe’s use of terror enlarges Emily’s understanding by exciting

her imagination, enabling her to be resourceful and regain control of

her emotions. Horror, for Radcliffe, confounds this understanding

preventing the individual from acting, and it is through Radcliffe’s use

of terror rather than horror that shows her reworking of the Burkean

sublime.

In addition, other lexis such as ‘desolate’, not only illustrates

they are alone, but evokes the idea that the landscape is lifeless,

providing the setting with a threatening, supernatural atmosphere.

Ellen Ledoux in Defiant Damsels, reinforces the view that ‘women

authors sometimes portray Gothic spaces as confining or threatening,

they also depict them as settings in which female characters exhibit

physical prowess’46. If we relate this statement to Radcliffe and The

Mysteries of Udolpho, we see that the woods around the chateau

provide the ‘threatening’47 setting that Emily finds herself. Ledoux also

45 Radcliffe, Ann The Mysteries of Udolpho. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966, p.63. 46 Malenas Ledoux, Ellen ‘Defiant Damsels: Gothic Space and female agency in Emmeline, The Mysteries Of Udolpho and Secresy’.

Women’s Writing. Vol. 18, 3, 2011, p. 331. 47 Ibid

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mentions that female characters ‘exhibit physical prowess’, something

that Emily doesn’t seem to have in this passage. However, it could be

argued that Radcliffe intended to convey Emily’s strength of character,

rather than her ‘physical prowess’ to empower her female readers, by

showing them that Emily is able to resist her sensibilities unlike

Radcliffe’s male characters.

What's more, in Edmund Burke’s essay A Philosophical

Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas into the Sublime and Beautiful,

he states that ‘The passion caused by the sublime in nature, when those

causes operate most powerfully, is Astonishment; and astonishment is

that state of the soul, in which all its emotions are suspended, with some

degree of horror.’48 By using words such as ‘gloomy’ and ‘desolate’

to describe the chateau, Radcliffe is able to create a setting which

causes Emily to feel the ‘degree of horror’ that Burke highlights as a

cause of the sublime, placing Emily in a situation that requires her to

take control of her sensibilities. Therefore, this highlights Emily’s

ability, from the beginning of the novel, to turn horror into terror and

shows that it is the sublime that creates the conditions which she finds

the strength to fortify her mind against her excited sensibilities. In

addition, it indicates that, for Radcliffe, the sublime creates not just

horrors, but also terror in which her heroines can then overcome their

distress and come to their own rescue. In Sublime Patriarchs and the

problems of the New Middle Class in Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of

Udolpho and The Italian, Charlie Bondhus reinforces the idea that

48 Burke, Edmund A Philosophical Enquiry into the origins of our ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

1990, p.53.

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Radcliffe uses the sublime as a tool in her narrative by stating that

‘sublimity is what allows her to act on what she sees, as it is the sublime

which enhances the female self with the fortitude and self-

awareness…that is required to confront villainy and alter the

environment.’49 This is important as it suggests that the chivalric notion

of the damsel in distress does not work in Radcliffe’s fiction. Instead,

she creates heroines capable of protecting themselves when confronted

with something such as the sublime by empowering their minds with

fortitude, illustrating how Radcliffe tries to challenge gender roles to

change the perception of women in society.

The sublime description of Barnardine is an example of where

Radcliffe gives the sense of empowerment to her female readers. This

is the first of two attempts by count Morano to steal Emily away from

the castle at Udolpho, before she enters the chamber where she finds

her aunt’s body:

Emily, surprised and somewhat shocked, did not dare to oppose

him further, but, as he was turning away with the torch, desired

he would not leave her in darkness. He looked around, and,

observing a tripod lamp, that stood on the stairs, lighted and gave

it to Emily, who stepped forward into a large old chamber, and

he closed the door.50


Italian’. Gothic Studies, Vol. 12, 1, 2010, p.16. 50 Radcliffe, Ann The Mysteries of Udolpho. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966, p. 346-47.

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Both words, ‘surprised’, and ‘shocked’ give connotations of fear

implying that Emily is, at this point, terrified of Barnardine’s figure and

in awe of the sublime, and as previously discussed, it is these effects of

terror and astonishment that show that Emily is experiencing the

Burkean sublime. It is reinforced that Emily is afraid when she enters

the chamber and is allowing the passions to, momentarily, cloud her

judgement: ‘Her anxiety increased, though she considered, that the

thickness of the floor in this strong building might prevent any sound

reaching her from the upper chamber.’51 Despite her anxiety regarding

Barnardine’s presence outside the door, Emily regains her composure

and checks the floor for an explanation as to why she can no longer

hear his footsteps. She says that ‘the thickness of the floor…might

prevent any sound from reaching her from the upper chamber’52, and it

is her composure in the situation that allows her to search for an

explanation; which as Robert Miles claims ‘return Emily, not just to

‘reason’, but to cultural and gender norms.’53

Similarly, in The Italian, Radcliffe uses the sublime as a way of

empowering her female readers, when Ellena is being held captive by

Spalatro:

Ellena shrunk while she gazed. She had never before seen

villainy and suffering so strongly pictured on the same face, and

she observed him with a degree of thrilling curiosity, which for

51Ibid, p.347. 52 Ibid 53 Miles, Robert Ann Radcliffe: The Great Enchantress. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995, p.132.

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a moment excluded from her mind all consciousness of the evils

to be apprehended from him.54

In this utterance, the ‘thrilling curiosity’ that as Radcliffe writes,

‘excluded from her mind all consciousness of the evils to be

apprehended from him’, suggests that Ellena is encountering terror

from the very beginning invoked through Spalatro’s sublime figure.

The way in which her ‘curiosity’ is presented as greater than the terror

associated with the ‘villainy and suffering so strongly pictured on the

same face’, indicates her strength of character as she has been able to

recover from this feeling of terror and become curious, rather than

afraid. If we compare this to Emily’s initial reaction to Barnardine in

The Mysteries of Udolpho when she ‘did not dare to oppose him

further’, there is a clear distinction between the two heroines. This is

because, unlike Ellena, Emily has to fortify her mind in order to control

her feeling of terror towards Barnardine whereas Ellena is presented as

already having mastered this ability through her ‘thrilling curiosity’ of

Spalatro. Radcliffe’s female readers that have read The Mysteries of

Udolpho, would likely make a similar comparison and expect Ellena to

react to Spalatro in a similar way. Yet, when Ellena demonstrates this

control over her emotions, Radcliffe’s readers can see Ellena’s strength

of character as an empowerment upon themselves as women in a

patriarchal society.

54 Radcliffe, Ann The Italian. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. p.210.

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However, as the passage continues, the sublime becomes too

much for Ellena when ‘the efforts she made to sustain her spirits, were

no longer successful’55 and ‘conviction struck like lightening upon her

heart’56. Expectantly, Ellena is overwhelmed by the sublime, but it is

her actions that follow this experience where Radcliffe can be seen to

empower Ellena’s character further: ‘She employed these two minutes

in examining the chamber, and the possibility it might afford of an

escape.’57 It could be a coincidence that Emily in The Mysteries of

Udolpho is forced to enter a chamber and, similarly to Ellena, search

for ‘the possibility of an escape’58, however I maintain that there is a

purpose for Radcliffe’s repetition in her plot narratives. Radcliffe

presents Ellena as being assertive and independent through the way in

which she spent time ‘examining the chamber’, and it is this analytic

approach and awareness of her surroundings that is an example of

Radcliffe’s challenging of gender stereotypes as women were not seen

as being analytical. By creating a scene in The Italian that mirrors that

of The Mysteries of Udolpho, Radcliffe’s readers are able to notice

distinct changes in her heroine’s reactions to the sublime, which

ultimately attempts to empower her readers and challenge established

hierarchies and power structures within a patriarchal society.

‘Although it is clear then that the sublime empowers women’59,

Radcliffe shows that, similarly to her male characters, Emily in The

55 Ibid. p.211. 56 Ibid 57 Ibid. p.212. 58 Radcliffe, Ann The Mysteries of Udolpho. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966. p.347. 59 Bondhus, Charlie ‘Sublime Patriarchs and the problems of the New Middle Class in Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho and The


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Mysteries of Udolpho allows her emotions to drive her actions when

she hears of her aunt’s imprisonment in the castle:

Soon after, she was inclined to consider these suspicions as the

extravagant exaggerations of a timid and harassed mind, and

could not believe Montoni liable to such preposterous depravity

as that of destroying, from one motive, his wife and her niece.60

In this utterance, Emily is conscious of the fact that she may be

‘suffering from her romantic imagination’, yet there is a sense of

naivety in Emily’s attitude towards Montoni and the accusations posed

against him that could be perceived as a weakness. Emily is clearly

aware of her current emotional state, which she refers to as ‘the

extravagant exaggerations of a timid and harassed mind’, yet the

following utterance that she ‘could not believe Montoni liable to such

preposterous depravity’ suggests that Emily still trusts Montoni, and

feels as though she knows him despite his real intentions. This is

obviously not the case and it could be said that Radcliffe is potentially

highlighting Emily’s naïve attitude as an example to her female

readers, to raise awareness of their own attitudes. In addition, it

highlights that Emily’s character differs from the usual conventions of

the Gothic novel where the heroine would give into her sensibilities

and require rescue from a hero. Due to her lack of family and seemingly

powerless position in the castle, Emily has no choice but to regain

60 Radcliffe, Ann The Mysteries of Udolpho. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966, p.342.

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composure. By attempting to analyse the situation and entering the

chamber despite her fears of what she will find, Emily’s awareness and

control over her excited sensibility can be seen by Radcliffe’s female

readers as an empowerment of the feminine; when compared to the

stereotype of the ‘truly sentimental individuals’ who, in earlier Gothic

fiction, ‘are often overcome by emotion, frequently shedding tears

when they are faced with a pathetic (or bathetic) sight.’61

It is clear then that Emily has some awareness of her emotional

susceptibility, which is preventing her from moving away from being

associated with Mullan’s ‘version of the feminine’. As a result,

Radcliffe uses the sublime as a technique which helps her to

communicate a sense of female empowerment to her female readers.

Radcliffe’s sublime description of Barnardine in The Mysteries

of Udolpho is typical of a masculine villain in Gothic fiction, and is an

example of Radcliffe using the Burkean sublime that gives a sense of

empowerment to her female readers. The ‘long dark cloak, which

scarcely allowed the kind of half-boots, or sandals, that were laced

upon his legs, to appear’ and his mysterious figure, ‘darkened by

habitual discontent’62, is what confronts Emily before she enters the

chamber. This is significant as Radcliffe describes the apparel of

Barnardine in some detail, yet there is no facial description, nor does

she describe any colour other than black.


Italian’. Gothic Studies, Vol. 12, 1, 2010, p.15. 62Radcliffe, Ann The Mysteries of Udolpho. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966, p.346.

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The idea of a faceless figure, in conjunction with the colour

black is evocative of death, giving a sense of the supernatural; creating

a frightening situation for Emily despite her best intentions to implore

reason. Furthermore, darkness is heavily associated with the idea of the

unknown, something which is achieved through obscurity in

Radcliffe’s sublime descriptions, causing Emily to feel ‘terror – fear of

pain’ 63 and a ‘paradoxical delight’ which forms the ‘basis of the

sublime’ 64 . It could be argued that Radcliffe uses this feeling of

apprehension to push Emily’s emotional capabilities to their limits,

providing us with the expectation that she will fail to control them. She

does this first, with the sublime image of Barnardine, then with the

mysterious chamber, and finally with the unknown contents of the

chamber. However, despite Emily’s terror from the sublime, she still

managed to use, what Robert Miles describes as, ‘developed

‘reason’’65, which, he says, acts as a kind of ‘surrogate guardian’66

preventing her from falling back onto her sensibilities. The control that

Emily exerts while experiencing the sublime, shows her strength and

empowers her character. In Defiant Damsels, Ellen Ledoux

acknowledges that there used to be a ‘dominant reading of Gothic

settings as places in which female characters generally lack agency’67,

yet Radcliffe contrasts this idea and uses the sublime to ‘foster strength

63 Miles, Robert Ann Radcliffe: The Great Enchantress. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995, p.46. 64 Ibid 65Ibid. p.130. 66Ibid 67 Malenas Ledoux, Ellen ‘Defiant Damsels: Gothic Space and female agency in Emmeline, The Mysteries Of Udolpho and Secresy’.

Women’s Writing. Vol. 18, 3, 2011, p.332.

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and activity in female readers’68; in other words, giving a sense of

female empowerment.

In his enquiry, Burke states that ‘to make anything very terrible

obscurity seems in general to be necessary’69, in that ‘when we know

the full extent of any danger, when we can accustom our eyes to it, a

great deal of the apprehension vanishes.’70 Burke is indicating that the

feeling of apprehension that is generated from the idea of the unknown,

is vital in creating the feeling of terror, a term commonly affiliated with

Radcliffe, one that is used on Emily in The Mysteries of Udolpho:

‘Presently, it advanced along the rampart, towards her window, and she

then distinguished something like human form, but the silence, with

which it moved, convinced her it was no sentinel.’ 71 Emily’s

imagination has been overwhelmed in this passage as a result of the

sublime figure on the rampart beneath her window. She first believes it

to be a ‘sentinel’72 that looked ‘something like human form’, until she

saw it ‘glide down the rampart’ 73 which convinced her ‘she had

witnessed a supernatural appearance.’74 The quick change between

these thoughts, shows how the sublime affected Emily, causing her

mind to search frantically for some kind of logical explanation for what

she had seen. It isn’t until further down the passage when the figure has

disappeared into ‘the obscurity of night’75 that ‘her spirits recovered

68 Ibid 69 Burke, Edmund A Philosophical Enquiry into the origins of our ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

1990, p.54. 70 Ibid 71 Radcliffe, Ann The Mysteries of Udolpho. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966, p.356. 72 Ibid 73 Ibid 74 Ibid 75 Ibid

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composure’76, and her ‘developed reason’77 takes control once again.

‘Afterwards she was inclined to believe that Count Morano had

obtained admittance to the castle’. 78 Emily’s frantic imagination

implies that she was experiencing the effects of pain, terror and danger;

effects that Burke defines as a cause of the sublime in his enquiry. ‘No

passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and

reasoning as fear.’ 79 It also shows that the mind can become

uncontrollable when excited by the sublime; highlighting Emily’s

temporary powerlessness to prevent it. Therefore, in Emily’s case,

Radcliffe allows the reader to see Emily’s feelings of terror, pain, and

pleasure when she is observing the sublime which make her appear

temporarily powerless; as we saw with the figure on the rampart which

excited her imagination. Once Emily regains composure and control of

her emotions, she uses ‘developed reason’80 to overcome her feelings,

in turn, showing her strength of character and again giving her a sense

of power.

Conclusion

To conclude, Radcliffe uses the concept of sensibility and the

sublime as techniques which aim to empower her female protagonists,

Emily and Ellena, in The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian. As

Bondhus reinforces, ‘The sublime is not, however, the only hegemonic

76 Ibid 77 Miles, Robert Ann Radcliffe: The Great Enchantress. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995, p.130. 78 Radcliffe, Ann The Mysteries of Udolpho. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966, p.356. 79 Burke, Edmund A Philosophical Enquiry into the origins of our ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

1990, p.53. 80 Miles, Robert Ann Radcliffe: The Great Enchantress. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995, p.130.

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tool that Radcliffe’s heroines gain control over; the sublime is also

connected to the cultural trend of sensibility.’ 81 Radcliffe uses the

concept of sensibility to emasculate her male characters as part of a

broader focus; to give a sense of female empowerment.

Radcliffe is using Emily and Ellena to exemplify the ‘woman in

question’82 within the female gothic genre to try and raise awareness to

her female readers of their own sensibilities. Bondhus reiterates ‘that

Radcliffe was attempting to rewrite the sublime for women, as she felt

that this phenomenon, in its Burkean formulation, is

At best a temporary escape, and at worst actively perpetuates,

the oppressive politics of a patriarchal society. Sublime

experience isolates, overwhelms, and eventually effaces those

individuals who succumb to it.83

Although I agree with this statement, I maintain that Radcliffe is

not only using the sublime as a ‘temporary escape’ but uses it in

conjunction with sensibility, to challenge the way women were

presented in eighteenth century society. Consequently, by participating

in debate about sensibility and using the sublime as a tool of

empowerment in her narrative, Radcliffe is able to question patriarchal

structures that define femininity and give a sense of empowerment to

her female readers.


Italian’. Gothic Studies, Vol. 12, 1, 2010, p.15. 82 Wallace Diana and Andrew Smith ed. The Female Gothic: New Directions. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, p.47. 83 Bondhus, Charlie ‘Sublime Patriarchs and the problems of the New Middle Class in Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho and The


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