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Chapter 9
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Monk, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Catholicism and Hypocrisy
The Folly of Pride
Morality
Appearance vs. Reality
Human Nature
Summary
Analysis
Lorenzo returns to Madrid on the day of Antonia’s burial, bringing with him the order from the duke-cardinal and a troop of men to back him as he goes to the convent to avenge Agnes’s apparent murder. He has not yet heard about Antonia’s apparent death. Raymond’s health remains stable, though he wants nothing more than to die and be reunited with Agnes. Lorenzo arrives at the gates of St. Clare an hour early, accompanied by his uncle, Don Ramirez, and a band of archers.
Lorenzo and his troops’ arrival suggests that there is still hope that Agnes may finally have justice for the atrocities that the Catholic Church has committed against her, if only posthumously. However, readers may not be so optimistic that such a resolution is possible given how frequently bad things have happened to good people throughout the book thus far.
Themes
The church service held in honor of St. Clare lasts until midnight. As Lorenzo listens to the church music, he fantasizes about revealing the church’s hypocrisy to the public. Finally, the music stops, and the torch-bearing nuns emerge to begin their procession. Lorenzo spots a group of nuns carrying the relics of St. Clare, and he immediately fixates on one he recognizes as Mother St. Ursula, based on Theodore’s description. Mother St. Ursula whispers to another nun that they are saved, since her—Agnes’s—brother is here. Then a wheeled cart passes by. On top of the cart, a beautiful young girl representing St. Clare sits upon a throne, and even Lorenzo is captivated by the girl’s beauty. He overhears a bystander identify the girl as Virginia de Villa-Franca, a relative of the prioress’s.
The church service and subsequent procession held in honor of St. Clare reinforce the Church’s hypocrisy: they hide the evil corruption that festers beneath these outward displays of religious devotion. But Mother St. Ursula’s whispered message to her fellow nun suggests that these evils will soon come to light as soon as Mother St. Ursula, protected by the papal bull she instructed Lorenzo to request on her behalf, reveals the corrupt and murderous schemes of the prioress to the public.
Themes
Finally, the prioress passes by, and Lorenzo is shocked when Don Ramirez lunges forward to take her prisoner. She tries to get the bystanders to rescue her, but Don Ramirez threatens them with the Inquisition, and they back off. The prioress exclaims that she has been betrayed. Mother St. Ursula appears alongside Lorenzo and his troops and accuses the prioress of murder. The crowd gasps in response and demands an explanation.
The Inquisition refers to the legal procedure and institutions within the Catholic Church tasked with charging and trying people suspected of heresy—it was founded in the 12th century and persisted into the 19th century. The prioress’s claim that she has been betrayed hints at the scope of corruption within the convent—the prioress may be the mastermind of her murderous schemes, but it’s clear that other nuns were in on her nefarious acts, too.
Themes
Following the prioress’s capture, Virginia fled the scene, leaving her throne vacant. Mother St. Ursula climbs upon the empty throne to address the crowd and tell them the tale of Agnes’s horrific and undeserved fate. Mother St. Ursula accuses the prioress of abusing her authority to inflict cruel and unjust punishment. Though in more recent years the convent had moved toward milder forms of punishment, the prioress resurrected an old rule that called for Agnes to live out the rest of her days in isolation in a dungeon, where she would see nobody and subsist solely on bread and water.
Together with Ambrosio, the prioress represents all the widespread hypocrisy and corruption within the Catholic Church: her severe and inhumane treatment of sinners contradicts the mercy, compassion, and forgiveness that the New Testament of the Christian Bible emphasizes. Indeed, the prioress’s proposed punishment for Agnes is unjustifiably cruel, especially considering Agnes’s only sin was breaking her vow of celibacy.
Themes
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Mother St. Ursula explains that the prioress exaggerated Agnes’s supposed sins in order to justify this extreme punishment. When the other nuns protested, the prioress formulated a new plan—a plan that the prioress’s detractors weren’t supposed to know about. Mother St. Ursula explains that she been in Agnes’s room to comfort the poor girl when the prioress and some other nuns arrived. Ursula quickly concealed herself and watched as the prioress forced Agnes to drink a potion. After Agnes consumed the liquid, she appeared to die, at which point the prioress and her cronies left the room. Ursula closes her speech by naming the four villains who assisted the prioress: Violante, Camilla, Alix, and Mariana.
Also like Ambrosio, the prioress is well aware that she is acting hypocritically and unjustly—that’s why she exaggerates Agnes’s sins and then lies to her detractors about her plans for Agnes’s punishment. This scene uses dramatic irony to create narrative tension, with readers likely detecting a detail that Mother St. Ursula seems to have overlooked: the liquid that Agnes consumed likely contains the same special herb that Ambrosio used to fake Antonia’s death. This means that Agnes might have only appeared to die and may still be alive.
Themes
With this, the crowd erupts with fury, and an angry mob descends upon the prioress, inflicting all manner of violent torture upon her until she dies, her body reduced to a bloody and revolting “mass of flesh.” After this, the mob descends on the convent, determined to ensure that no nun may emerge from it alive. Angry villagers make their way into the building, breaking furniture and busting windows. Soon, the structure bursts into flames. Lorenzo is horrified to have indirectly caused this chaos, and he resolves to protect as many innocent nuns as he can.
Whereas many innocent characters suffer despite their virtuousness, the book adheres to conventional understandings of morality by punishing sinners for their misdeeds, as the prioress’s brutal death in this scene demonstrates. Lorenzo, realizing that the angry mob has no interest in distinguishing between which nuns are guilty of conspiring with the prioress and which are merely innocent bystanders, resolves to protect as many innocents as he can, but it seems inevitable that some innocent women will be punished for sins they have not committed.
Themes
Lorenzo follows the mob into the convent and makes his way into the cemetery just in time to see the door to the vault open. Someone looks out from inside the vault but, seeing the angry mob, quickly disappears back inside and shuts the door behind them. Lorenzo and the duke make their way to the vault and follow the mysterious person through underground passageways. Eventually he finds his way to a lamplit cavern, where he sees a group of nuns. One of them is Virginia. Lorenzo has mercy on her and promises to protect her from the angry mob. Meanwhile, the other nuns anguish over having to remain in the tomb for much longer—it’s horrifying to be in the darkness, surrounded by the decaying corpses of their departed sisters. Worse, they keep hearing a horrifying groaning sound coming from somewhere in the distance.
In a sense, the vault represents all the corruption, hypocrisy, and injustice within the Church that goes unnoticed by undiscerning outsiders. Now, as Lorenzo and his troops venture deeper into the hidden passageways, perhaps some of these secrets will finally come to light. Indeed, the groaning sound that the nuns claim to hear in the distance hints that at least one hidden secret is on the verge of discovery. Readers may have some suspicions as to the source of the sound: it could be Antonia awakening from her drug-induced slumber. Or it could even be Agnes.
Themes
Lorenzo is about to berate the nuns for their childish fears when he, too, hears the horrific groaning. Lorenzo inches toward the noise. One of the nuns, Sister Helena, says it’s coming from the shrine of St. Clare, a statue known to perform miracles. Lorenzo inspects the statue more closely and realizes that its pedestal is hollow—and that there’s a hidden passageway beneath it.
The passageway hidden beneath the statue of St. Clare symbolizes the hypocrisy and corruption that hides beneath outward displays of religious devotion. In this case, the statue is literally concealing what seems to be a person experiencing a great deal of suffering, based on the audible groans of anguish that sound from the depths of the hidden passageway.
Themes
Lorenzo descends into the cavern beneath the statue, and suddenly the groans start up again. He stumbles through the darkness and the groans become louder until he reaches the source of the noise: a rambling, filthy, and extremely malnourished prisoner holding a bundle. She cries out that everyone has forgotten her. When Lorenzo assures the woman that he has come to rescue her, she reaches out to him. As she touches his face, she cries out, ‘Is it possible—That look! those features!—Oh! yes, it is, it is…’
Lorenzo doesn’t seem to recognize the prisoner, but her response to his facial features (“Is it possible—That look! those features!—Oh! Yes, it is, it is…”) seems to suggest that she recognizes him. Readers may suspect that this horribly malnourished woman is Agnes, and they may likely be correct.
Themes
Lorenzo releases the prisoner from her chains and lifts her out of the cavern. Virginia requests that she be put in charge of tending to the unknown prisoner. Lorenzo is touched by what he interprets as Virginia’s compassion. In truth, though, she is acting in self-interest, having observed Lorenzo’s kind, sensitive nature and wanting him to take an interest in her. Just then, the group hears a voice crying out for help coming from deeper within the vault. Lorenzo and Don Ramirez run toward the voice.
Although Virginia’s desire for Lorenzo to like her is hardly the worst ulterior motive a character has concealed behind an outward display of religious feeling or compassion, Virginia’s selfish reason for wanting to help the prisoner reinforces the book’s overarching point about the unreliability of appearances. Meanwhile, the voice that Lorenzo and Don Ramirez hear from deeper within the vault builds narrative tension, leading readers to wonder what other hidden atrocities the men will stumble upon.
Themes
