Matthew Gregory Wallace's The Monk: A Close Reading

Matthew Gregory Lewis’ The Monk was first published in March 1796. The title first perceived The Monk as a ‘romance’. When writing to his mother he stated that The Monk is a ‘Roma[nce] in the style of Castle of Otranto’ [Louis, P.10]. A stark difference to what readers would consider a romance. When it was first published Lewis hid his initials with the title only showing M.L. It wasn’t until second publication after he got his title of MP he showed his full name.

This passage depicts the poignant part of the novel where Matilda reveals her true self in order to summon a daemon to retrieve a magical Myrtle for Ambrosio to use on Antonia to finally have non-consensual sexual relations with. Up until this point, all his attempt has been foiled by Antonia’s mother, Elvira. This Myrtle is to be used to unlock the door to Antonia’s room and put her in a coma-like sleep. In this close reading, I want to look at the liminal space within crypts, how Matilda is presented in the passage and the link between femininity and the sublime.

This passage is set in a crypt deep underground. The crypts in The Monk serve as a gothic representation of hidden identities and liminal spaces. Matilda, once disguised as Rosario, reveals her true, inhuman form in the crypts.  Her transformation that inspires ‘the beholder with awe and admiration’ [P.242] aligns with the gothic Burkian definition of sublime, as her terrifying yet awe-inspiring power evokes both fear and fascination. Burke stated that ‘whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger… is a source of the sublime’ [Burke, P.3], this is shown through Matilda’s transformation but is also a common theme that runs through this passage.

The crypt itself holds ‘Skulls, Bones, Graves’ [P. 242]. This imagery connects to the underworld and making this ordeal closer to the underworld and the afterlife, suggesting that something out of realm of religion is going to take place this space, a place furthest away from God’s judgement. Jung categorised the liminal through the idea of the unconscious/conscious.

“In those times I had no idea of the collective unconscious. I thought of the conscious as of a room above, with the unconscious as a cellar underneath and then the earth wellspring, that is, the body, sending up the instincts.”

Jung, C.G

With Matilda and Ambrosio being underneath the ‘earth[‘s] wellspring’, they are open to not only express true identities and desires but also for Ambrosio to confront his fears. This is a common denominator throughout The Monk. Here, in this passage, Ambrosio comes face to face with a daemon and the supernatural, but he seems to be ‘engrossed by the idea of sorcery and spirits’ [P.242]. Only in a liminal space would a man of God think as such.  Elsewhere in the novel you have the rape of Antonia in the crypt as well as Agnes facing the death of her child. The crypts aren’t solely for places of horror, it also a small path to freedom, after all Agnes is eventually freed from them. The crypt thus becomes a liminal space where the boundaries between fear and hope embody the gothic tension between real and supernatural.

Matilda’s description in The Monk highlights her captivating and terrifying presence, embodying a portrait of gothic femineity that both inspires awe and admiration. Her ‘sparkling eyes’ [P. 242] and ‘uncovered neck and arms’ [P.242] along with her wild, loose hair, align her visually with religious iconography such as the Virgin Mary. The portrait of femineity while simultaneously subverting the traditional male-centric gothic aesthetics.

This visual dominance reflects Robert Miles’s assertion that Gothic discourse is often written for the male audience and that ‘sight was thought to be the noblest’ [Miles, P.8] of the senses. He writes that the gothic aesthetic internalises these visual ideals often link to the eroticisation of the female body. However, the character of Matilda disrupts this theory as she asserts control over both the male character in this passage but also of the narrative voice. So, in turn, controlling the reader as well, which were mostly male. It can be argued that Lewis leans into Mile’s theory if the character was female, it would work between Ambrosio and Antonia but not with Ambrosio and Matilda.

In contrast to Mile, Creed’s Monstrous-Feminine writes how ‘monstrous’ women are typically positioned as embodiments of male fears, Matilda challenges these notions, but not in ways you’d suspect. Ambrosio first thinks that she is ‘perishing under the cruel fangs of daemons’, showing that he doesn’t suspect anything out of the ordinary and yet when she reveals herself ‘his limbs tremble’ [P.242].  Matilda embodies these male fears by presented herself as a woman in not just power but in control. Creed’s writings on the ‘monstrous feminine’ links directly to Kristeva’s approach to abjection. When she states ‘the abject had only one quality of the object – that of being opposed to’ [Kristeva, P.126] it is a direct link to Creed’s analysis but also Matilda as a character, an abject of a woman, looks like a woman but is deeply powerful. Ambrosio, who was once attracted to Matilda, now submits to terror.

Her use of magic further positions her as a witch, reinforcing her supernatural power and challenging the traditional gothic heroine trope. This subversion role raises questions about whether Matilda can be regarded as truly female or if her control of the sublime and male characters marks her as the daemon she is revealed to be at the end of novel.

Furthermore, the reader can also feel the terror surrounding her as she appears immune to the sublime that overwhelms others – ‘ascended huge columns of unhewn stone’ and ‘immense chamber’ [P.242] and yet she ‘continued her incantations’ [P. 243] despite the fearful elements around her. This suggest a mastery over the sublime itself, something that is rarely seen within women in gothic literature.

Although this is a gothic novel, angelic imagery runs through this entire passage. The way femininity is presented throughout the passage is always through the perspective of Ambrosio through the narrative voice. Notably, it is no coincidence that the two largest paragraphs of this passage focus on supernatural events that contradict the church doctrine. The paragraph detailing Matilda’s summoning the daemon and then the description of said daemon. When the passage first starts, a third person voice through the perspective of Ambrosio is narrating, this can be determined by the reader knowing what he is thinking, for example, ‘he thought he could distinguish the accents’ [P. 241]. Yet, when it comes to the largest paragraph in the passage, the voice shifts to Matilda. Not only does she take control of the space within the novel but also of the reader.

Throughout the passage, femineity is closely linked with sublimity. We not only see this with the description of Matilda where she is depicted with angelic imagery. Imagery that sharply contrasts with the traditional views of the church. Similarly, the daemon is described in a way that challenges typical perceptions, creating connections to Freud’s theory of scopophilia, the pleasure received from looking at bodies, and the queer gothic. When the daemon is summoned, the narrative perception switches back to Ambrosio. Phrases like ‘perfectly naked’, ‘seemingly scarcely eighteen’, ‘his silken locks’ [P. 244], emphasise this unconventional portrayal. Furthermore, this daemon is surrounded by a ‘rose-coloured light’ and a ‘refreshing air… perfumes through the cavern’ [P.244] evoking sublime rather than terror in the reader, a stark opposite of how Ambrosio feels upon first witnessing the daemon as ‘a cold shivering seized his body’ [P.243] Moreover, the daemon’s angel-like description subverts the church’s teachings of the time. It positions femininity as a powerful force capable of corrupting a monk. This imagery seems to challenge the church’s authority and suggests its fallibility this would.  

The period in which The Monk was published was after the time on enlightenment, a time of ‘profound faith in human powers’ [Cuddon] where it can be argued that belief in the church and religion would be fading as it was the start of industrialisation. Furthermore, gothic novels of this time were ‘invested in the secularizing project of emancipating individuals from superstition, which they expose as a form of manipulative social control deployed by despotic authorities’ [Drury. P,217] so would gothic readers of The Monk find this angelic description so wrong?

In conclusion, The Monk explores liminality, femineity, and sublimity to transgress religious and societal norms. The crypt serves as a liminal space that allows Matilda to reveal her true form. Her transformation aligns with Burke’s sublime while subverting traditional portrayal of women in gothic literature.  The blending of angelic and demonic imagery highlights tensions between religion and enlightenment ideals. The daemon’s portrayal reinforces these themes, evoking gothic tensions.

Bibliography

Burke, E. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757)

Creed, B. The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis, Routledge. 1993

Cuddon, A.  Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, 5th edn (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013)

Drury, J. ‘Twilight of the Virgin Idols’, The Eighteenth Century , Vol. 57, No. 2, 2016

Kristeva, J. Approaching Abjection, Oxford Literary Review, Vol. 5, No. ½, 1982

Lewis, M. The Monk: a romance, Oxford University Press, London, 1973

Miles, R. Gothic Writing, 1750-1820: A Genealogy, Manchester University Press, 1993

Peck, L. A Life of Matthew G. Lewis, (1961)  Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press