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 next morning in her parlor, Emily thinks back on her previous evening’s meeting with Valancourt. Just then, Annette comes rushing in to say that she’s seen a ghost, but Emily thinks at once that Valancourt must be hanging around somewhere. In fact, however, Ludovico is the one who has shown up at her door. Annette is so excited to see him alive that she can barely stop talking.
Ludovico continues to act as a counterpart to Valancourt, making a big return similar to Valancourt’s own return to Emily. But while Emily still has mixed feelings about Valancourt, Annette greets Ludovico with pure joy.
Themes
Ludovico mentions that Count De Villefort, Blanche, and Chevalier St. Foix will all be coming soon to see Emily, after the chevalier recovers a little from his injuries. He then recounts the story of what happened to him on the night he spent in the Marchioness De Villeroi’s old room. Just as he was falling asleep, he heard a strange noise. He went toward the bed, where the noise was coming from, then heard another sound, like a key turning in a lock. It turns out behind a tapestry in the room is a door in the wall, and a man was coming through it.
Like at Udolpho, it turns out that Count De Villefort’s chateau also has hidden passages within it. The fact that Ludovico was on the verge of sleep when he say the strange intruders initially give his story a nightmarish quality, but as he goes on, the strange events turn out to have a logical explanation, which is a pattern that keeps recurring throughout the novel.
Themes
Ludovico says in fact there were four men who came in through the wall. The men surrounded and overpowered him, then carried him through a long passage that came out on a cave at a beach. They took him by boat, and then over mountains until eventually they arrived at a fort where they kept him captive. It turns out the men (the smugglers from before) were pirates. While Ludovico was there, he heard the pirates plotting to murder Count De Villefort and his party, so Ludovico shouted out to warn the Count and his friends. And so, they stopped the pirates.
The pirates that Ludovico encounters are much like the mercenary bandits that Montoni led on raids from his castle. The presence of so many different types of thieves in this world emphasizes how widespread greed is and how it can have a corrupting effect on people, making the world more dangerous for others around them.
Themes
That evening, Theresa comes to give Emily the ring that Valancourt left her. Emily, however, refuses to accept it. Theresa lectures her about why she shouldn’t just throw away a chance at happiness. Emily still has conflicted feelings about Valancourt, so she tries to distract herself by making plans to give a marriage portion (a monetary wedding gift) to Annette and Ludovico to help them start a life together.
Despite Emily’s trust in Theresa, she still struggles with the sense of betrayal she feels from Valancourt’s actions. Going back to what Sister Agnes said about how the guilt of sin sticks with a person, Emily can’t bring herself to let go of what Valancourt (supposedly) did in Paris, no matter how much he tries to reform himself.
Themes
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