The Castle of Otranto: Imagery 3 key examples

The sensory language here provides the reader with an impression of the echoing, gloomy hollowness of the undercastle. Walpole uses many words that mean "dug out" in order to emphasize the fact that Isabella has descended beneath the earth, as if into a grave. The space is "hollowed" and "subterraneous"—it's not, in other words, simply a downstairs area. Isabella's speedy descent into the belly of the castle is reflective of the rapid decline in her circumstances after her fiancé Conrad's unexpected death. Her prospects are as uncertain and as dangerous as this journey.

The "awful silence" that "reigns" is the sonic equivalent of the "darkness" Isabella must move through. It is only punctuated by "blasts of wind" that shake and "grate" the rusty hinges of the entrance. The darkness of the castle and the silence of its vaults—only broken by these startling and occasional sounds—are both representations of Otranto's emptiness and the unknown future that Isabella is also moving into, and the use of imagery helps underscore this dynamic.

The natural world helps Theodore along in almost all his endeavors in this novel, including this important escape. The beautiful image of "streaming moonshine" contrasts starkly with the dark and frightening undercastle in which the two find themselves. The bright colors of the moon reflecting on the bronze lock are also very different from the ghastly dankness of the "subterraneous cavern." When moonlight is mentioned, an event or conversation involving Theodore's claim to the castle is imminent.

Manfred cannot believe that it was mere luck or divine intervention that helped Theodore find the lock, as he asserts when accusing him later in Chapter 1:

“what becomes of thy boasted veracity now? it was Providence, was it, and the light of the moon, that discovered the lock of the trap-door to thee? Tell me, audacious boy, who thou art, and how long thou hast been acquainted with the princess—and take care to answer with less equivocation than thou didst last night, or tortures shall wring the truth from thee.”

Cite this Quote

Manfred's relationship to moonlight is not a positive one. It reveals his mistakes, its "providence" helps and favors Theodore his enemy, and it also accompanies the later visitation of Alfonso that removes him from his position as the Prince of Otranto. This distaste for moonlight is a constant for the novel's villain. For example, in Chapter 1 when Manfred is pursuing Isabella, the moonlight that "gleamed in the opposite casement" draws Isabella and Manfred's attention to the "fatal helmet," which has accelerated all their troubles. Isabella, prompted by the moonlight tells Manfred that: "Heaven itself declares against your impious intentions!”

Even the other characters in the novel seem to be able to perceive the moonlight's opposition to Manfred's aims. Isabella aligns it to the divine light of "heaven" here, also evoking Manfred's previous claim that neither "Heaven nor Hell" would stop him. The imagery of moonlight inexorably draws the attention of both Walpole's characters and the reader to things that must come to light.

The "vapours" and mists that permeate the dark corridors of the castle of Otranto have previously been portrayed as quite frightening, as they are a staple of the Gothic genre's sensory language of unease. In this tense scene, where Matilda is trying to put armor (a loud process) on Theodore quietly, they are interrupted by what they believe to be the sound of someone sinister approaching. However, the "deep and hollow groan" turns out to have been either a belch or a fart. These "pent up vapours" are placed in comedic opposition here to the otherwise quiet and creepy atmospheric conditions of Otranto. The sense of silence being broken here is palpable; the fact that a fart is not what the reader is expecting makes it funny.