Embodied Ideology Walpoles Expression Through Characters in Castle of

Embodied Ideology Walpoles Expression Through CharactersThe interpretation of the eighteenth century gothic as ?a confused and strange form, ambivalent or unsure about its own aims and implications? (Kilgour 5) is an entirely adaption one for Otranto - especially with regard to domestic and gender ideology. Valdine Clemens tells us that at the time of Otranto?s publication, ?cultural conditions ? were highly repressive for women? (31). Women were vulnerable and defenseless, unavailing to exercise control in most areas of their lives. Men were allowed to control where their children went to school, where they worked, and to whom they got marry ? all without any input from their mother. As well, it was much easier for a human creations to divorce his wife than for a woman to divorce her husband. Clemens cites Lawrence Stone to spend a penny us just such an example of the inequalities women had to suffer? a bird with numerous aristocratic connections sued for divorce from her hu sband, who ?had been unfaithful to her on their wedding night, had fast(a) all the maidservants in the house, had given his wife venereal disease, and was constantly drunk.? Her use was defeated after considerable parliamentary debate on the reasonableness that ?divorce by act of Parliament had traditionally been restricted to husbands, shut when there were peculiarly aggravating circumstances like incest.? (34)Walpole?s clean can be seen as having a feminine bias and being subversive of these social norms. There is, however, evidence that supports a conservative ideology as well. This makes it particularly difficult to give a definitive dish out to the long-debated question of whether or not Walpole was trying to be conservative or subversive of societal nor... ...ranto and subsequent revelation of authorship points to a impertinent desire to circulate and to not circulate his work at the same time. It is not improbable that Walpole was also unsure about what he precious t he implications of his novel to be. Like the incongruous and ambiguous nature of the gothic (discussed in IncongruousCorpus), Walpole himself was ?unsure about his own aims?, whatever his views on society were. full treatment CitedClemens, Valdine. The Return of the Repressed Gothic Horror from The Castle of Otranto to Alien. New York SUNY P, 1999.Ellis, Kate Ferguson. The contest Castle. Chicago U of Illinois P, 1989.Kilgour, Maggie. The Rise of the Gothic Novel. London Routledge, 1995.Marcie Frank. ?Horace Walpole?s Family Romances.? late Philology 100 (2003) 417-35.Walpole, Horace. The Castle of Otranto. New York Oxford UP, 1996.