Novel Beginnings (ENGL 3205)

I’m uncertain if this should just be a direct copy of my presentation or further thoughts on the the topic so I’ve decided to write my further thoughts on the topic and let my powerpoint give my presentation.

The religion of the characters of mysteries of Udolpho is far from the orthodoxy one might expect from the France or Italy in the period she was writing. The characters do at time encounter religious figures and symbols but they are judged based on their beauty or character rather than their piety. In the early travels of Emily and her father, religion takes on a dual nature of sanctuary and danger. The perfect example of this is when they view a stone cross and are struck by the beauty of it but at the same time Emily pictures Bandetti pouring forth from it to attack them. When they are stuck between towns and trying desperately to find shelter for the night, it is the ringing of the convent bells which leads them to safety.

The convent which Emily stays in upon the death of St. Aubert is the point which best displays Radcliffe’s portrayal of the religion of the characters of Mysteries of Udolpho. The convent itself is both a source of comfort and of pain to Emily as she rests there to recover from his death. While the quiet atmosphere of the convent and the kindness of the nuns are soothing to her, she is also driven to great pain as she risks a midnight visit to his grave and proximity to him keeps his death fresh in her mind. There is no real religious connection to the nuns beyond their occupation. One might think that of anywhere in the novel, religion could be found in a stay at a convent but this is not the case. The treatment of the nuns and the Abbess are much the same as the treatment of the villagers where St Aubert dies. They are praised for their simple rural kindness rather than their pious kindness.

The question the becomes why does Radcliffe place her characters in religious settings without addressing any of the religion. Emily would’ve most likely been a Catholic and her willingness to stay among nuns furthers this belief. When she is staying at the convent though she does not go to Mass with them and only attends the funeral service for her father. One likely cause of this is that Radcliffe would’ve been an English Protestant and therefore would’ve been at the least uncomfortable with Catholicism if not downright disgusted by it. This novel doesn’t display much anti-Catholicism but in her other novels, like The Italian, she is vicious in her treatment of Catholic figures. Since Mysteries of Udolpho came before The Italian there’s a chance she had been neutral earlier or that she was working her way up to the treatment in The Italian and started with indifference. Personnally I believe that the reason religion was given this kind of treatment in Mysteries of Udolpho is just that it wasn’t her focus for that novel. Yes Emily would’ve been Catholic but her goals in writing that novel were not related to religion and therefore religion receives little treatment. With The Italian, she set out to include religion which explains her much harsher treatment of it.

Fall was a very very good book and has sold me on Colin McAdams. Well the novel combined with his reading for the Lorenzo society has. It is a very interesting book which draws the reader in to become deeply involved with the characters. Personally, I found the characters easy to identify with people in my life… which has led to me being very creeped out whenever I’m around my boyfriend’s roommate now….

The character of Julius comes off as very true to my perception of teenage boys, especially given the situation he was in with such high expectations. Noel was frightening from the beginning. I remember at the reading there was a man that said he was very put out by Noel being psycho because in the beginning he saw himself in Noel… for those of you that haven’t read it, there’s a section very early on where he talks about an empty room after a party being purged of its disease with the former partygoers as the disease… I really hope never to be left alone with this man because just as Fall was Noel’s trigger, who’s to say what will be his? Creepy older men aside, Noel was very well drawn. There’s enough history given of how others perceive him to reinforce the more subtle cues given from Noel’s perspective about how he really isn’t quite right. That he bit off a piece of flesh because someone punched him in the eye is not a comforting thing to know and further puts Julius’ judgement into question. Granted when with him Noel might have acted a little differently and he wasn’t there to see the fight… still though. When they take their revenge on Ant and Noel manages to get Ant hospitalized because of how he tied him up, this should have been an indicator that he wasn’t quite right. I guess to be fair, Ant doesn’t come off as entirely right in the head either. There’s always the chance that I really just don’t understand the level of aggression involved with being a teenage boy and especially one in senior year that can hold his own against older angrier rugby players…

This potential lack of understanding of the boys also allowed me to further define what McAdams left open about Fall. The vague clues as to the disconnect in her family life and the dependant nature of her friendships show a very hard life which Julius and Noel are entirely oblivious to. Despite how certain he is that he sees things no one else sees, Noel entirely misses the sadness that leads the reader to see many times of Fall in tears or being extra distant. Julius is privy to these instances but his understanding of her is too shallow despite how deeply he claims to love her. McAdams stated at the reading that Fall was left undefined because he felt it was impossible for men, and especialy teenage boys, to understand or really see women and girls. In retrospect I’m reminded of arguments put forward by De Beauvoir concerning the myth of woman and find myself inclined to agree with McAdams. If my own experience is to be counted as well, men are just as much of a mystery to women as women are to men.

All in all I highly reccommend this novel to everyone! It’s very well written and has a good mixture of heart wrenching and humor.