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
Emily travels with Annette across Languedoc to Thoulouse. She associates the area with Valancourt and begins to cry as she remembers how much she used to look forward to living together with him. Now, however, she feels as if her beloved version of Valancourt isn’t even alive anymore. When she arrives at the chateau, she has new melancholy thoughts about what happened to Madame Montoni. Annette agrees that the house is dismal.
As more time passes, Emily seems to get more and more sentimental about her time with Valancourt. She even thinks fondly about Madame Montoni, who did not have an easy relationship with Emily. The dismal chateau of Madame Montoni is yet another old building that seems to remain haunted by events that occurred in the past.
Themes
The next morning, Emily plans to leave Thoulouse to see La Vallée, but first, she still has business to finish at Madame Montoni’s. Walking around her aunt’s old home makes Emily nostalgic as she remembers how the local vegetation used to change throughout the year. Her thoughts about Valancourt soften a little as she remembers how he tried to warn her about Montoni. She tries to think of how a mind as capable as Valancourt’s could fall into such low temptations. She thinks that being in Paris was part of what corrupted him.
While Emily often thought about the past while trapped at Udolpho, her trip back to her aunt’s chateau is even more nostalgic. Although previously, Emily’s refusal of Valancourt seemed to be a sign of the strength of her convictions, she has had to face several difficult moral decisions over the course of the novel. Reflecting on these makes her consider the possibility that perhaps Valancourt himself is complicated, neither fully good nor bad.
Themes
That evening, in the darkness, Emily almost thinks she sees Valancourt himself in the garden, but she only gets a brief look. The next day, several neighbors and friends of Madame Montoni come to visit. Emily dislikes how everyone fawns over her now that she has inherited some money. In the evening, she is afraid to go in the garden in case she sees another mysterious figure, and she avoids it for several more days.
Emily is used to being ordered around as a pawn in other people’s schemes to secure money or an advantageous marriage. Now, with some of her own authority as the owner of a new fortune, she faces the test of how she’ll use her power, and she seems to pass the test for now, refusing to give in to the temptation to abuse her new power.
Themes
Finally, after a week, Emily decides to go in the garden again, with Annette by her side. Annette notices that Emily is getting startled at even small disturbances like the wind and asks her what’s going on. Annette herself recently heard about a robber in the garden, but she didn’t know that Emily also knew about it. In actuality, Emily hasn’t heard about this robber, whom the gardener saw and fired a gun at. The gun didn’t kill the man, but the robber did leave a trail of blood. Emily faints at the sight of the blood.
Yet again, an event in the story that seems at first to be supernatural (the figure in the garden) turns out to have a rational explanation. While blood can symbolize violence, it also confirms life, in that the “robber” is clearly a real flesh-and-blood person and not some ghostly figure or illusion.
Themes
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When Emily revives, she’s still feverish for a while, causing her to stay even longer at Thoulouse (and she also stays because she’s afraid to leave if Valancourt is around). Still, eventually the evening before the day of her planned departure to La Vallée comes. She looks out at the garden and cries, seeing no sign of anything like Valancourt.
Emily fears that Valancourt was the man who got shot the previous evening, and imagining the possibility of harm to Valancourt seems to cause her to reconsider her feelings, as shown by her crying in the garden over Valancourt’s possible fate.
Themes
