BACKGROUND: The Castle of Otranto is a 1764 novel by Horace Walpole. It is generally regarded as the first gothic novel. ‘Goth’ generally expresses ideas about the end of the world, death or the devil. Gothic novels are written in the style popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, which described romantic adventures in mysterious or frightening surroundings. A castle is a large strong building with thick high walls and towers, built in the past by kings or queens or other important people, to defend themselves against attack. Otranto itself is a town where St. Nicholas church was established in England.

1. INTRODUCTION
TO THE NOVEL
The Castle of
Otranto
By: Horace Walpole

2. BACKGROUND:
The Castle of Otranto is a 1764 novel by Horace Walpole. It is
generally regarded as the first gothic novel.
‘Goth’ generally expresses ideas about the end of the world, death
or the devil. Gothic novels are written in the style popular in the
18th and 19th centuries, which described romantic adventures in
mysterious or frightening surroundings.
A castle is a large strong building with thick high walls and towers,
built in the past by kings or queens or other important people, to
defend themselves against attack. Otranto itself is a town where St.
Nicholas church was established in England.

3. PLOT SUMMARY OF THE NOVEL
“Castle of Otranto”
– The novel ‘Castle of Otranto’ tells the story of Manfred, lord of the castle
and his family. The book begins on the wedding day of his sickly son,
Conrad and Princess Isabella. Just moments before the wedding, his son,
Conrad is crushed by a gigantic helmet that falls on him from above.
Manfred was terrified that Conrad’s death signals the beginning of the
end of his lineage resolves to avert destruction by marrying Isabella
himself while divorcing his current wife, Hippolita who he feels has failed
to bear him a proper heir. However, when Manfred tries to marry Isabella,
she escapes to a church with the help of a peasant called Theodore.

4. Manfred orders Theodore’s death while talking to the Friar Jerome who ensured
Isabella’s safety into the church. When Theodore removes his shirt to be killed,
Jerome recognizes a mark below his shoulder and identifies Theodore as his own
son. Jerome begs for his son’s life but Manfred said that he either gives up the
princess or his son’s life but they are interrupted by the sound of a trumpet and
the entrance of a knight from another kingdom who wants to deliver Isabella.
This leads the knight and Manfred in the race to find Isabella.
Theodore being locked in tower by Manfred is freed by Manfred’s daughter,
Matilda. He hides her in a cave to protect her from Manfred and ends up
fighting one of the knights. Theodore badly wounds the knight which is Isabella’s
father, Fredric. After that, they all go out the castle to work things out. Frederic
falls in love with Matilda and Manfred begins to make a deal about marrying
each other’s daughter.

5. Manfred suspects that Isabella is meeting Theodore in the church.
He takes a knife into the church where Matilda is meeting
Theodore, thinking his own daughter is Isabella, he stabs Theodore
then revealed to be the true prince of Otranto and Matilda dies,
leaving Manfred to repent. Theodore then became king and
marries Isabella because she is the only one who can understand
his true sorrow.

6. SETTING OF THE NOVEL
– The Castle of Otranto mirrors the melodramatic existence of the
people of Otranto and has its physical setting in Otranto in
England. The actual time frame of this story is 13th century
during the time of the crusades. The crusades were a series of
wars by Christians from Western Europe against the Muslims in
order to repossess Jerusalem and other lands deemed holy to
Christians.

7. The physical setting of the novel is set in Southern Italy, as
references are made to Sicily in the novel. With respect to
the immediate physical setting of the story, actions mainly
move between the Otranto castle and St. Nicholas Church. In
line with the typical Gothic narrative, the major immediate
setting, the castle, is a hunted place, a place that inspires
mystery and dread, haunted by ghosts as well as
characterized by vast labyrinthine (complex system of paths
or tunnels in which it is easy to get lost) and underground
structures.

8. Class Work
– Mention Ten (10) full names of the characters in the Novel

9. WEEK 2: Analysis of chapter one
The narrator’s description of Matilda as a young, beautiful virgin points to
the economic value assigned to virginity — whose associated qualities of
marriageability and reproductive utility motivate Manfred’s interest in Isabella
and his disinterest in his wife Hippolita, who is sterile. However, Manfred still
favours his son over his daughter, a sign of his sexism even within an already
patriarchal system in which Matilda would be considered valuable currency.
Though the peasants are correct in guessing Manfred’s motivations for the early
marriage, they have no evidence to support their assumption, showing that even
if they have a kind of instinctual sense of the truth they are also simple and
superstitious in comparison to the nobles, who attribute kinder reasons to
Manfred’s impatience.

10. As Walpole pointed out in his prefaces, terror drives the story
forward. Without knowing what made the servant fearful, everyone
in the chapel is in terror. Hippolita even swoons, an act that
overwhelmed noblewomen often do in Gothic literature. The cruel
irony is that Conrad dies on both his birthday and the day he was to
be married, but the manner in which he dies also makes this irony
humorous: that he is killed by a giant helmet falling from the sky is
utterly absurd. The helmet, the story’s first supernatural appearance,
also triggers the fulfillment of the prophecy feared by Manfred. The
appearance of the giant helmet, combined with the prophecy that the
real ruler of Otranto would be “too large” to fit in a castle, suggests
that true ruler was the owner of the armor.

11. The contrast between Manfred’s and the peasant’s
behaviour seems at first to contradict the dichotomy that
Walpole has set up between the naïve and superstitious
peasants and the dignified and refined nobility. That the
peasant is observant, dignified, strong, and humble,
especially in comparison to Manfred’s unwarranted rage,
reveals their true natures (spoiler alert): the peasant as
Otranto’s rightful ruler and Manfred as a usurper who stole
the throne.

12. CLASS WORK
–“Malfred is gender bias”, to what extent do you
agree with this statement? Justify your answer
with copious examples from the text.
ASSIGNMENT
What are the supernatural elements in The
Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole?

13. CORRECTION: Manfred is gender bias”, to what extent
do you agree with this statement? Justify your answer
with copious examples from the text.
In Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, the female
characters are predominately presented as passive and emotionally
fragile, particularly in contrast to their male counterparts. For
example, when faced with Conrad’s death Manfred reacts “in a
tempest of rage,” while Hippolita appears “anxious… [and] swooned
away” (14, 16). A constant reaffirmation of gender bias attitudes
occurs throughout the novel: women are expected to remain quiet, to
dote upon the men, and to attend to the sickly, while men robustly
venture forth to discover the cause of danger and bravely confront it.

14. Women flee while men stay and fight.
These gendered fictional representations
reflect, influence, and perpetuate patriarchal
attitudes toward women. Walpole’s novel
depicts women without the right to self-
determination and submissively accepting
their lower status.

15. ASSIGNMENT CORRECTION
What are the supernatural elements in The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole?
In this novel, Walpole attempts to combine Old Romance with
New Romance. Old Romance greatly focuses on the supernatural and
the fantastic. New Romance is more down to earth. In combining the
two, Walpole is able to present ordinary characters working amidst
extraordinary circumstances. 18th Century England saw the reign of
Henry VIII, who started the Anglican Church in order to circumvent
Catholic Church rules about marriage. The king wanted to marry Anne
Boleyn but the Church was not keen on dissolving his first marriage to
the Catholic queen, Catherine of Aragon.

16. WEEK 3: SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 2
Matilda had sent Bianca, her attendant in search of Isabella. The
story of the gigantic leg and foot which had been seen in the gallery
chamber had terrified Bianca and that is what she could report other
than the whereabouts of Isabella. Bianca and Matilda are engaged in
the discussion about whereabout and missing of Isabella inluding the
need of Matilda going into convent or getting married.
In the meantime, a servant had come to report to Matilda that Isabella
had been found at St. Nicholas Church. The coming of of the father
Jerome to announce the finding of lady Isabella is to stay in the church
till the father comes to pick her, infuriated Manfred who trembled
with rage and shame but father Jerome had cautioned Manfred.

17. Manfred insists that Isabella returns to the castle and prays
the priest to dissolve the marriage between him and Hippolita to
pave way for him to marry Isabella who will make the continuity
of his family lineage possible with children after all. Hippolita is
related to him by fourth degree and he is not supposed to marry
her in the first place.
Manfred now changes the topic from Isabella to the youth
who aided the escape of Isabella last night and the youth is
discovered to be Theodre. The young man was seized by Manfred
and threatened to be executed and the friar intervened to
announce that he is the father of the youth. The friar used all
devices to make sure the youth boy do not loose his life because
of rash and callous disposition of Manfred.

18. CLASS WORK
Summarise the discussion between Matilda and
Bianca
Assignment
Give the detailed account of the discussion between
Manfred and Father Jerome.

19. Summary of Chapter 3
Father Jerome urges Manfred to purge himself of his mudane
disposition; to repent and request that Theodore be freed. In the
course of his dialogue, a certain herald comes in with a message
from the kinights of the gigantic sabre who accuses Manfred of
being an usrper of Otranto. This statement infuriated Manfred.
Manfred directs father Jerome to bring back Isabella before he
could free his son, Theodore, and also orders that Theodore be put
under strict guard while going to meet with the Herald.
The herald had been sent by the knight of the gigantic sabre in
the name of the lord, Fredric, Marquis of Vicenza, who demands the
return of Isabella to the home of her late father, Frederic. Frederic,
a Martial, had married a beutiful lady who died in child birth of
Isabella.

20. In the mean time, there appears to be a confusion as to
the state of affairs the casle in respect of Hippolita's state of
health and other issues.
Then comes the knight and his train. Manfred addressed
the knights till an interruption by Father Jerome and other
trains made Manfred to excuse himself and went in pursuit of
Isabbela, whom he learnt had absconded from the castle.
Theodore with the aid of Matilda had escaped, eventually ran
into Isabella and as they were been pursued by the knights.
Theodore used his sword to wound his adversary, who later
turned out to be Federic, the father of Isabella. Federic was
conveyed back to the castle by Theodore on a horse, while
Isabella mournflly folloewd behind.

21. SUMMARY OF CHAPTER FOUR
The sorrowful troop arrived at the caastle and were met
first by Hippoilita and Matilda. The ladies caused Federic to
be conveyed into the nearest chamber while the surgeons
treat his wounds. Matilda was not happy, seing Theodore
and Isabella together but she pretended.
Hippolita demands of Federic the cause of his having
taken the mysterious ways to reclaim his daughter, Isabella,
Federic replied that while he was a prisoner to the infidel,
had a dream where it was revealed to him that his daughter
was detailed in a castle.

22. Not quite long, Manfred, Jerome and part of the troop
entered the chamber serious probe of all by Manfred.
Thereafter, Matilda and Isabella each confesed to the other
the impression Theodore had made on them. Isabella
however, suppressed her feelings and let Matilda let go for
Theodore.
Manfred had in the meantime proposed marriage with
Isabella and Frederic never opposed the idea since he is bt on
marrying Matilda to aid his succession to the principality.
Hippolita shall concede to divorce only if the church allows
that.

23. SUMMARY OF CHAPTER FIVE
Manfred is still battling emotionally as how to
contrive the marriage to Isabella. He does not exactly know
the true position of Frederic in the whole saga. Hippolita
promises no opposition to the proposed marriage to
Isabella. Manfred tried to extract from Bianca the secrets
of the relationship between Isabella and Theodore. As
Manfred goes to Federic to sound him out about the
proposed marriage, Bianca burst into the room with great
fear and trepidation and manages to tell them that he saw
upon the uppermost barrister “a hand in armour as big as
big”.

24. In the meantime, the hall was set for a banquet
and Manfred placing Frederic near Maltilda, sits
between his wife an Isabella after the banquet, they
all retire to their apartments.
Frederic was going to see Hippolita to convince
her to yield to the divorce and thus prpare a way for
him to marry Matilda since that is a condition for
Manfred to marry Isabella. Suddenly, he ran into an
apparition of a spectre who had warned him not
marry Matilda.

25. Manfred keep on snoozing around to find out
the particular thing holding Theodore and Isabella
together. In the course of the night, he overheard the
speech of one, drawing his dagger and mistakenly
hit the dagger on his daughter, Maltilda which led to
her death.
The castle now is to be headed by Theodore
who married Isabella afterwards and thus the
prophesy came to pass.