Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Mysteries of Udolpho, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Marriage, Love, and Inheritance
The Wonders of Nature
Mystery and Superstition
Mortality
The Value of Education and Art
Summary
Analysis
In the year 1584, the chateau of Monsieur St. Aubert stands on the banks of a river called the Garonne in the province of Gascony (in France). The landscape is lush, with the Pyrenees mountains to the south. St. Aubert likes to wander the area with his wife (Madame St. Aubert) and daughter (Emily). He comes from an illustrious family but doesn’t have much money, particularly due to some of his father’s bad financial decisions. And because St. Aubert wasn’t willing to sacrifice his own happiness for money, he ended up married to a woman who is friendly but no richer than him.
The opening chapter of the book spends a lot of time establishing the setting, showing how important settings are to this story. This first passage establishes a central conflict between love and money, showing how each can be a major factor in marriage decisions. St. Aubert decisively chooses love over money, and the happiness that results from this decision shows the value of marrying based on love, while also hinting at the potential consequences of marrying based on greed.
Themes
St. Aubert’s chateau was just a simple summer cottage until he made some renovations to allow it to fit his whole family. Now, the house has a big library with new and old books. Next to the library is a greenhouse with rare and beautiful plants. Emily has her own room full of books, drawings, and musical instruments.
The prominent placement of books in St. Aubert’s home shows how he places value on education and learning. Similarly, the greenhouse full of rare and beautiful plants shows an appreciation both for science and for the beauty of nature. Emily’s own room indicates that she is like her father in her interests.
Themes
Although St. Aubert has mostly lived in happiness at La Vallée, his family had some difficult periods in the past, including the death of two very young sons, leaving Emily as the only surviving child. From then on, St. Aubert became particularly protective of Emily, teaching her to be brave but to exercise self-control. He also taught her about scholarly subjects, like languages, art, and science.
Grief runs throughout the novel, and this passage referencing St. Aubert’s dead sons shows how grief even affects a place as idyllic as La Vallée. In part because Emily is the only surviving child, St. Aubert gives her the sort of education he might have given his sons if they’d survived.
Themes
Emily likes to walk around the local area, particularly to a little fishing house by the Garonne. One day, Emily sees that someone has written an anonymous sonnet on the wall of the fishing house that seems to be about her, although she is anxious because she can’t be sure she’s the subject. She doesn’t think about the sonnet, however, after St. Aubert falls ill.
This passage with the anonymous sonnet on the wall of the fishing house introduces the first of many mysteries in the novel. Although the sonnet seems to compliment Emily, there is something unnerving about the anonymity of its author, and it seems like a bad omen after St. Aubert falls ill shortly after the poem appears.
Themes
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Despite his severe fever, St. Aubert eventually begins to make a full recovery. At one point during his recovery, he asks Emily to play the lute for him. She keeps her lute in the fishing house, so she goes there, only to hear the sound of someone already playing the lute. She listens until the musician finishes, then she goes in and finds that the fishing house is totally empty.
Mysterious music occurs throughout this story, suggesting how the unknown can be disturbing and beautiful at the same time. The gothic genre frequently incorporates elements of the supernatural, and this passage seems to hint at a ghost, while still allowing for the possibility of a mundane explanation.
Themes
Emily takes the lute and meets up with St. Aubert and Madame St. Aubert on their way to the top of a grassy hill. There, they sit and look out at the tranquil landscape while Emily plays for them until the evening. It’s so pleasant that they all regret having to leave—and for Madame St. Aubert, this is the last time she’ll ever see that hill.
Although the narration follows Emily most of the time, the narrator is ultimately omniscient, as this passage reveals: The narrator already knows that Madame St. Aubert will never see this hill again. This passage seems to foreshadow that Madame St. Aubert will die soon, adding to the feeling of dread in this chapter.
Themes
As they’re leaving the hill, Madame St. Aubert notices that she’s missing a bracelet that has a lot of sentimental value to her because it has a miniature on it of Emily. Madame St. Aubert remembers last placing it on a table in the fishing house before going on the walk. The family searches for it, but they can’t find it. Emily fears that the mysterious lute-player and sonnet-writer may also have stolen the bracelet. She decides never to go alone to the fishing house again.
The bracelet’s disappearance once again disrupts the idyllic nature of life for the St. Aubert family. This passage hints at the transient nature of material things, even sentimental ones like the bracelet, a theme that will become even more prominent later in the novel.
Themes
When St. Aubert, Madame St. Aubert, and Emily make it back to their home, they see an unusual amount of activity. It turns out Quesnel and Madame Quesnel, Madame St. Aubert’s brother and sister-in-law, have come to visit. Quesnel and Madame St. Aubert have never been particularly close, particularly since Quesnel didn’t approve of her marriage to a relatively poor man. He himself married a rich Italian heiress.
Quesnel’s choice of a rich Italian heiress as his wife distinguishes him from Madame St. Aubert, who chose her husband based on his character rather than based on his fortune (which wasn’t large). This shows how Quesnel is more materialistic and shallower than his sister and brother-in-law, setting up a potential conflict.
Themes
Quesnel and Madame Quesnel talk with St. Aubert and Madame St. Aubert, marveling at how the two of them manage to live in such a remote area without getting bored. Quesnel, who also has a stake in La Vallée (though he seldom visits), now wants to improve it so that he can bring some friends, a duke and a marquis, to spend a couple months there. He also wants to cut down some of the nearby trees. St. Aubert is horrified by these suggestions, but Quesnel says he trusts St. Aubert to make these changes before the next time he returns.
Quesnel’s plans to “improve” La Vallée show that he doesn’t understand its value in the same way that St. Aubert does. His decision in particular to cut down all the local trees shows a lack of respect for nature and a desire to control it rather than appreciate it. Topping all this off is Quesnel’s own obliviousness about how much these commands cause pain for St. Aubert, who appreciates the estate as it already is.
Themes
Later that evening, Quesnel takes St. Aubert aside to speak to him alone. No one hears the conversation, but when St. Aubert comes out of the room, he looks pale and disturbed. The two of them have another mysterious conversation the next day before Quesnel leaves.
Although the narrator is omniscient, the narration also creates a sense of mystery by deliberately withholding some details. St. Aubert’s pale look suggests once again that the happy and peaceful life his family has enjoyed thus far may soon be coming to an end.
Themes
That evening, after the guests are gone, Madame St. Aubert doesn’t feel well, so St. Aubert and Emily go on a walk alone. They go to see some pensioners whom St. Aubert supports with a weekly stipend. As they walk, St. Aubert tells Emily about how the evening gloom of the woods has always calmed and delighted him, making him think of the supernatural, like fairies. Emily says she feels exactly the same. She recites a poem she composed called “The Glow-Worm.”
Supporting the pensioners shows that St. Aubert is generous with his money, even though he doesn’t have a lot of it for someone in his position. This poem that Emily composes is the first of many original compositions by Radcliffe that appear within the story credited to Emily. Radcliffe also quotes other poems by real-world poets, usually at the start of chapters. The frequent use of poetry helps to capture the wonders of nature.
Themes
St. Aubert and Emily return to La Vallée. They find that Madame St. Aubert has already retired to her chamber, and the next day she has a fever. St. Aubert calls a physician and tells him that he had a bad feeling earlier that his wife’s illness might be fatal. The physician doesn’t understand the disease, but Madame St. Aubert herself feels that she is about to die. Madame St. Aubert tries to be brave and pass on whatever wisdom she can before finally dying of her illness.
Although Madame St. Aubert’s condition is serious, she accepts her death with relative calm, focusing instead on Emily’s future. This suggests that Madame St. Aubert long ago recognized her own mortality and lived her life without regrets, which then allows her to die peacefully—an idea the novel will return to again later.
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