The Symbolism Of The Castle In Radcliffe's The Castle

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Radcliffe describes the castle as a huge, magnificent place exactly suited the dramatic plot of a romance and horror: The Castle of Mazzini was a large irregular fabric, and seemed suited to receive a numerous train of followers, such as, in those days, served the nobility, either in splendor of peace, or the turbulence of war. Its present family inhabited only a small part of it; and even this part appeared for forlorn and almost desolate from the spacious of the apartment, and the length of the galleries which led to them. A melancholy stillness reigned through the halls, and the silence of the court, which were shaded by high turrets, was for many hours together undisturbed by the sound of any foot – steep (S.R., P.4). Radcliffe’s woods …show more content…

There is no clear map, one can never tell how could he get out or remember how did he got in, for instance, when Julia escapes from the castle, at the nearly end of the novel, she ends up into a secret tunnel which leads her to the southern part of the castle where she find her mother in an isolated chamber, without knowing that she returns to the same castle. 33 The castle of Mazzini is full of secret rooms and deserted apartments which cause a state of horror.34 The lights and the sounds that come from the southern side of the castle give connotation that the castle is haunted: The appearance of alight in a part of the castle which had for several years been shut up, and to which time and circumstances had given an air of singular desolation, might reasonably be supposed to excite a strong degree of surprise and terror. In the mind of a vulgar, any species of the wonderful is received with avidity; and the servants did not hesitate in believing the southern division of the castle to be inhabited by a supernatural power (S.R., P.6). Moreover, the castle represents the aristocratic palace of a noble man /woman who is the prototypical protagonist of a classical gothic