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
The confessor comes back to console Emily, inviting her to come back to a convent, but she declines. She goes to see St. Aubert’s corpse that evening and begins to cry uncontrollably. Emily kisses the body good night as she used to do when he was alive.
Emily’s refusal to leave St. Aubert’s corpse reflects both an unwillingness to let go of the past, but also perhaps a willingness to look at mortality directly.
Themes
The next morning, a sister from the convent comes again to invite Emily, and she reluctantly agrees to go later that day. La Voisin shows her how to reach the convent. At the convent, Emily speaks with the abbess. The abbess acknowledges that Emily must be in shock and in pain, and she tries to comfort her. They hold a service in the chapel, then Emily heads back with La Voisin. On the way back in the dark, La Voisin gets lost because he’s trying to avoid the nearby chateau, which everyone in the area always avoids at night.
Despite being a peasant, La Voisin had much in common with St. Aubert, and so after St. Aubert’s death, he temporarily play a role like a father to Emily. The darkness that Emily and La Voisin wander through on their way back suggests both the sadness of grief as well as how, without her father to guide her, Emily faces difficult decisions about where to go next.
Themes
Emily asks if the chateau has any connection to the deathly music, but La Voisin says there are other sad circumstances that relate to the chateau. When they get back to La Voisin’s cottage, it’s time to take out St. Aubert’s body. Away from the convent, Emily begins to feel melancholy again.
Despite Emily’s faith, death remains mysterious to her, and the other mysteries, like the music and the chateau, add to the uncertainty that she feels in the wake of her father’s death.
Themes
A servant from Madame Cheron arrives, but it takes Emily a while before she’s ready to travel back. Before she leaves, she wants to visit her St. Aubert’s grave alone one last time. She goes out to the grave and lingers there for a while, looking at St. Aubert’s name on the monument. That night, she sleeps better than she has in a while.
Once again, Emily takes comfort in facing mortality directly (by visiting her father’s grave and seeing his name on the monument) rather than trying to avoid the issue. Her better sleep suggests that she has begun to accept his death, taking St. Aubert’s advice from earlier about showing self-restraint when it comes to grief.
Themes
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Traveling back home, and particularly approaching La Vallée, brings Emily’s grief back. It makes her sad to see all of St. Aubert’s favorite places. At the chateau, Emily talks with her remaining maid, Theresa. Theresa tries to comfort Emily to stop her from crying. Emily can’t bear the silence and emptiness of the chateau, at one point reciting a sonnet about grief that she once heard St. Aubert recite. She wanders out into the darkness, causing Theresa to fear that something has happened to Emily. She tries to persuade Emily to eat some of a pheasant that a peasant friend of St. Aubert’s sent over, but although Emily is moved by the gesture, she just goes to her room.
Emily’s trip back to La Vallée emphasizes how she is now on her own, without St. Aubert to guide her through life anymore. Although St. Aubert is no longer alive, he continues to live on in Emily’s memory, as her recitation of the poem shows. The pheasant that Emily receives from an old friend of St. Aubert’s shows how St. Aubert’s good deeds in life continue to resonate after his death. It also highlights how the natural world continues to provide comfort to Emily, even in her darkest moments.
Themes
