The mysteries of Udolfo – The sensitivity and death of St Aubert
Ann Radcliffe’s influential gothic novel, Udolfo’s mysteries (1794), is actively involved with sensibility, a concept prevalent in much of the literature of the eighteenth century. The following analysis explores how the narrative addresses the theme of sensibility through the examination of a key scene: the death of the protagonist’s father, St Aubert. Extracts are from the Oxford World’s Classics 1998 text edition.
Sensibility arose in the philosophy of the early 18th century before being later applied to literature. Essentially it refers to a person’s emotional response to their environment. Those who are considered to have a high degree of sensitivity frequently experience intense and overwhelming reactions to their environment, while those without sensitivity are largely indifferent to their environment. With its emphasis on the emotions as opposed to the intellect, the sensibility has often been seen as a response to the rationalism that characterized the Augustan age.
In literature, sensitivity manifested itself in the genre of the sentimental novel, the novel by Laurence Sterne. a sentimental journey (1768) and Henry Mackenzie The man of feeling (1771) being notable examples. To a lesser extent, the concept was also employed in the Gothic novel, albeit in a very different setting. Sentimental novels generally featured domestic settings familiar to their readers, while the Gothic novel was usually set in distant medieval pasts.
Literary critics are divided on whether udolfoThe heroine of , Emily St Aubert, could be considered a downright sentimental character. Some scholars describe her as a hero of refined sensibilities, in the sense that she responds primarily to her environment emotionally, rather than intellectually. This is evident when the young protagonist is frequently shown crying, fainting, or feeling overwhelmed or descending into melancholy in response to her deeper experiences of hers throughout the story.
Emily’s father dies relatively early during a key scene that explicitly addresses the concept of sentience. On his deathbed, St Aubert warns her daughter “not to give in to the pride of good sentiments” (1, 7, p. 79), referring to the dangers of excessive sensitivity. Opposite extremes of rationalism and emotion are invoked at the council of St Aubert in a dialogue that anticipates Emily’s later experiences, particularly her adventures in the castle of the same name. Once imprisoned in Udolfo, it becomes imperative that the protagonist apply logic and reasoning to her problems, rather than submit to emotion.
St Aubert considers ‘apathy’ to be the opposite of sensibility, a characteristic which he affirms as “a vice more hateful than all the errors of sensibility” (1, 7, p. 80). characters in udolfo they are often described through their degree of sensitivity. While Emily, St Aubert and Emily’s lover Valancourt are portrayed as highly emotional characters with an affinity for their natural surroundings, Madame Cheron, Mgr Quesnel and Signor Montoni, on the other hand, are typified as essentially urban and generally indifferent to nature. The juxtaposition of urban and rural space in udolfo plays a significant role in managing sensitivity in the novel. Drawing on Rousseau’s theories about the dangerous influence of cities and the veneration of nature, Radcliffe portrays the city as a haven of vice, which temporarily corrupts the impressionable Valancourt, while Emily’s Gascon home in La Vallee is characterized as a rural idyll.
A famous quality of udolfo, and most of Radcliffe’s fiction, is that it doesn’t actually feature any supernatural events. The carnival of apparitions Emily witnesses throughout the novel is revealed to have perfectly rational explanations. This particular aspect relates to St Aubert’s warnings about the dangers inherent when a young woman succumbs to her sensibilities. In the 1790s, the concept of sensibility was being challenged, and with his emphasis on rationalism, Radcliffe would seem to share these concerns.