Masculinity In The Castle Of Otranto

Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto begins with the death of the groom, Conrad, and ends with the death of his sister, Matilda. The story interacts closely with death and the looming threat of death, which serves as a catalyst. With the introduction of death, characters become aware of finite life and take extreme actions to fulfill their desires. Although males have faulted characters before interactions with death, their masculinity only becomes toxic when they are familiarized with the option of death. After witnessing the death of his son Conrad, Manfred becomes fixated on continuing his family line with the birth of another son because his sense of masculinity necessitates that he passes on his name. Prior to the death of his son, Manfred can rely on Conrad as heir, controlling the urges of his masculinity by arranging an early ill-fitting marriage and neglecting his wife and daughter. He does not see Conrad as a “homely youth, [who is] sickly” (Walpole 17) because he is masculine, therefore, …show more content…
He does so at the expense of happiness. The pairing was intended to “forever indulge the melancholy” (101) that accompanied his love’s death. With Matilda’s tragic ending, Theodore irrationality maintains his unease because he cannot accept that she is gone. He believes in idealized romance and the responsibility of the man to protect the virtue of the woman, which is characteristic of the time. His sense of masculinity dictates marriage to accompany love, which makes Theodore exclaim “at least she shall be mine in death” (97) and attempt to fasten a hasty bond of matrimony to the dying woman. When this is rejected, he turns to a woman that is affectionate of him and can sympathize with him. Death spurs him to marry on the basis of preserving negative emotion, creating toxins that are made to exist as long as the match