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Gothic extract essay - The Monk
This was an essay I wrote as practice for the unseen extract question of Paper 2 A Level English Literature. I received a grade B for this essay.
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Matthew Lewis’ The Monk was written in 1796 and was shaped by the rampant anti-Catholicism of late 18th century England, and contains all the violence and
supernaturalism that Ann Radcliffe avoids in her novel The Mysteries of Udolpho.
Lewis explores the typical objectification of women seen time and time again due to
the misogynist society we live in “the lovely object before him” By Ambrosio seeing
Antonia as just an object an not an actual human being it could reflect the fact that
he is acting purely from desire and lust, not from love or emotion as we typically
associate the act of intercourse with. A key example of objectification in the Gothic
would be the objectification of Elizabeth in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. This could
also be used to highlight the fear of female sexuality: if we see women as just
objects then they can have no emotions etc to which they can act upon and thus
cannot be seen as sexual. Throughout time, female sexuality was feared to be linked
to mental illnesses such as hysteria, seen in Shakespeare’s Hamlet whereby
Ophelia’s love for Hamlet, combined with her father’s death by Hamlet’s hand,
essentially caused her death. Here the objectification of Antonia could be a metaphor
for not just her demise, but perhaps also that of her mother’s too. “Her mouth half-
opened seemed to solicit a kiss” even in her enchanted sleep she appeals to his
sexual frustrations and begs for a kiss: perhaps yet again highlighting the fear of
female sexuality. This could also be highlighted by the “sort of modesty in her very
nakedness which added fresh stings to the desires of the lustful monk” the oxymoron
of “modesty” and “nakedness” reflects on the whole contradiction of the situation and
perhaps stands as a metaphor for the situation: the religious monk committing not
just an act of sin, but one of the seven deadly sins.
Lewis uses the description of Antonia to explore the contradictory nature of the
situation “her cheek reclining upon one ivory arm; the other rested on the side of the
bed with graceful indolence.” ivory has connotations of purity and is a symbol of
innocence and chastity: in this context, the meaning of the ivory is corrupted as the
monk is about to attempt to engage in intercourse with the sleeping figure. The
statue of St Rosalia in the room is intended to metaphorically symbolise the
corruption of religion due to Ambrosio’s actions in the extract. St Rosalia is the
patron saint of evolutionary studies, which some may say is rather ironic, the
intermingling of science and religion, both of which have very opposite views.
There is a lack of life in the room as suggested by the “faint light” shining on the
statue of St Rosalia - with light being a metaphor for life and hope, Lewis could be
trying to suggest here that there is little life and hope in the room, and what there is
of it, it’s very weak and susceptible to the danger presented by darkness. Similarly,
in The Fall Of The House Of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe, the lack of life in the room is
represented by the encrimsoned beams of light entering through the window and the
black oaken floor. This lack of life could be seen as foreshadowing the death of
Elvira at the end of the extract.
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