A Sicilian Romance

Secrets and legacies belong to all of the novel’s characters; the motif deepens understanding of their background and their good or bad character, as well as demonstrates The Oppression of Women in Patriarchal Society. Most of the women in the novel represent a legacy of love lost to patriarchal power. Madame de Menon carries the secret of her husband’s slaying of her brother and his intentional death in battle, a story that she tells Julia and Emilia so that they may know more about their mother but that she wishes “for ever obliterated” (25). This legacy is intertwined with Louisa’s: Madame’s slain brother was the man whom Louisa wanted to marry, and it was his death that pushed her into her miserable marriage to the Marquis de Mazzini. In a parallel story, Cornelia’s secret grief over her lost love leads to her taking religious vows and eventually to her death.

The secrets the characters carry also lead to their downfalls, and because of this they carry power. Maria de Vellorno’s secret trysts represent her deceptive and manipulative character, and her fear and resentment of Madame de Menon is intensified when Madame discovers them. By contrast, Madame’s good character is emphasized when she declines to reveal this secret and instead leaves the castle. When Maria’s secret is ultimately revealed, it proves so detrimental to her relationship with the marquis that she chooses to end both their lives. The Duke de Luovo discovers his own secret during the novel–that his son Riccardo was so disgusted with his father’s oppressive rule that he fled to become an outlaw. The duke’s secret reveals the class structures at work in the novel, because “when he wished [Riccardo] dead, it was rather to save himself from disgrace, than his son from the real indignity of vice” (77). Radcliffe explicitly links secrets to disgrace here.

The central and most detrimental secret of the novel is the marquis’s imprisonment of his wife, which has so much evil weight that it sets the plot in motion and creates the sense of supernatural terror that the characters experience. This secret is also the source of the Abate’s power: By threatening to reveal it, he manipulates the marquis into leaving Julia at the monastery. The marquis is so desperate that he will invent a family history of murder, and even commit actual murder, to conceal it. However, the novel suggests that only confessing these secrets will give their keepers any peace; thus, the servant Vincent has confessed his role in the crime to the Abate, transferring the dreadful power to him, and the marquis confesses to Ferdinand in the hopes of averting the poisoning of Louisa that he has already set in motion.

These secrets and legacies represent a central tenet of Gothic terror: that at any moment the past may intrude upon the present. By keeping these secrets and legacies buried, the characters allow themselves to be haunted. It is only when their secrets are revealed and the truth comes to light that the characters can move forward.

The locked doors and labyrinthine tunnels throughout the novel connect with the motif of secrets; they symbolize barriers to the characters’ discovery of the truth and heighten the Gothic elements of claustrophobia and confusion. Louisa refers to the “labyrinth of misfortunes” she has experienced under the marquis’s power (158), and the marquis is trapped within a “labyrinth of vice” (161). For women like Louisa, Julia, and Emilia, who are trapped in secret cells, rooms, and monasteries, locks and labyrinths literally stand in the way of freedom, love, and truth. The fact that only men like the marquis can unlock them highlights The Oppression of Women in Patriarchal Society. By contrast, unlocked doors present hope and opportunity. When Hippolitus and Julia attempt their first escape together and the final unlocked door “discover[s] them to the gray dawn” (59), there is a sense of palpable relief, though only temporarily. Through his power over his children and his servants, who have betrayed the plan, the marquis is able to discover their escape and place Julia once again under lock and key.

Ferdinand and his sisters also encounter locked doors in their experience of The Use of Rational Thought to Explore the Supernatural. When they begin exploring the abandoned section of the castle, they find themselves again and again stymied by locks: “Hope invigorated curiosity, but his expectation was quickly disappointed, for this door was also fastened. He tried in vain to force it” (40). Ferdinand reasons that he must get access to the keys, because all his passionate frustration will not unlock the door. However, like the secret these passages hold, only the marquis holds the keys, and like the secret, the marquis will not give them up. The characters also discover that there are two sides to every lock, like there are to every secret: On the outside wondering what is concealed, there is frustration and uncertainty; but on the inside unable to escape, there is despair and terror. It is only when the doors are unlocked, the secrets revealed, that the characters can find the rational explanations they have been looking for.