Characterization, Identities, and the Supernatural in Otranto Essay

The dissever Self Characterization, Identities, and the SupernaturalA cursory first reading of Horace Walpoles Otranto major power yield an impression that its characters are thoroughly superficial, shallow, and forthwith, almost to the point of beingness laughably so. A whizz character mold seems to have been utilize to each character Manfred is the incestuous tyrant, Hippolita is the helplessly devoted wife, Matilda is the picture of heart and soul and duty (38), and Theodore is the chivalrous protector of delicate young ladies. As just about critics have pointed out, each character is described heavy-handedly, and the agent provides no keys into the privileged minds of the characters, relying instead of outward displays of excess emotion (Sedgwick 131). Consequently, Otranto becomes theatrical (Napier 33) because of its emphasis on dramatic action and visual display. To the reader, each character and his/her displays of emotion admit in Otranto to make what amounts to a thoroughly ludicrous cast.There is well-nigh debate over the substitution of flat characters for even a single dynamic characters. Was this a deliberate choice on the part of the author? Some possibilities that may arise include the suggestion that Walpole was unskilled as an author and consequently, was unable to write well. Another suggestion is that Walpoles skill as an author is demonstrated in his intentional choice to write flat characters to achieve a higher purpose. Perhaps this purpose was to make his con novel a work of pure entertainment with mindless, fluffy characters? Or to maintain a quick-moving plot? Or perhaps Walpole decided to consistently sacrifice characters to other, more highly valued aspects of narrative such as deterrent example and plot (Napier 34) wi... ...f boundaries between characterizations, identities, the psychological, and the supernatural, is not only ambiguous and incongruous, but unstable, contingent, baseless, mysterious, and haunting. kit and caboodle CitedFreud, Sigmund. Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria (Dora). The Freud Reader. Ed. Peter Gay. Trans. crowd Strachey. New York Norton, 1995. 172-239.Moglen, Helene. The Trauma of Gender A Feminist Theory of the English Novel. Los Angeles, CA U of California P, 2001.Morris, David B. Gothic Sublimity. New Literary History. 16.2 (Winter, 1985) 299-319.Napier, Elizabeth R. The unsuccessful person of Gothic Problems of Disjunction in an Eighteenth-Century Literary Form. New York OUP, 1987.Sedgwick, Eve K. gumminess of Gothic Conventions. New York and London Methuen, 1986.Walpole, Horace. The Castle of Otranto. New York OUP, 1998.