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Gothic Novel: Castle Spectre
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C. F. Barrett, novelist, wrote Gothic chapbooks, which are abridged or plagiarised novels with spectacular and supernatural effects. Douglas Castle: or The Cell of Mystery (1803) is based on Clara Reeve’s [q.v.] Old English Baron. It is set in Medieval Scotland and concerns the wicked Baron Douglas, who imprisons his victims in an iron tower. The Round Tower, or The Mysterious Witness (1803) purports to be an Irish legendary tale from the sixth century. The plot and atmosphere is derivative of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The vengeful wife of the Danish usurper, Sitric, is a Gaelic version of Lady Macbeth.
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Gothic novels are essentially novels of terror or horror. The atmosphere or mood of the novel is usually dark and threatening. Something horrible could happen at any moment. The setting helps to establish this threatening mood. As Jerrold E. Hogle explains in his introduction to The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction, “a Gothic tale usually takes place (at least some of the time) in an antiquated or seemingly antiquated space.” 6 Castles, old churches, graveyards, and ancient ruins add to the darkness of the novels. These places are frequently gloomy and isolated.
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Action in the Gothic novel tends to take place at night, or at least in a claustrophobic, sunless environment. Innumerable motifs (link to a complete list) typical of Gothic fiction have been identified, some of which are: haunted castle; ascent (up a mountain high staircase); descent (into a dungeon, cave, underground chambers or labyrinth) or falling off a precipice; secret passage; hidden doors; the pursued maiden and the threat or rape or abduction; physical decay, skulls, cemeteries, and other images of death; ghosts; revenge; family curse; blood and gore; torture; the Doppelganger (evil twin or double); demonic possession; masking/shape-changing; black magic; madness; incest and other broken sexual taboos.
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Mary Pickard, novelist, wrote The Castle of Roviego: or, Retribution (1805), which is an example of sentimental Gothic set in Sicily that draws on Radcliffean landscape and may have been influenced by Radcliffe’s A Sicilian Romance. The Count of Rialves’s only son Alfonso, while away at sea, is told by a disembodied voice to hasten back to his beloved Rosalia, who has mysteriously disappeared. He disembarks at Palermo and returns to the Castle Roviego, which contains some supernatural surprises though these hardly compensate for the lack of villainy in the novel. When the lovers are reunited, Father Anselmo fatally sabotages the Gothic milieu by reminding them of the beneficence of the creator of the universe.
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The setting is greatly influential in Gothic novels. It not only evokes the atmosphere of horror and dread, but ... portrays the deterioration of its world. The decaying, ruined scenery implies that at one time there was a thriving world. At one time the abbey, castle, or landscape was something treasured and appreciated. Now, all that lasts is the decaying shell of a once thriving dwelling.
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