SUMMERS, KAREN CRADY, Ph.D. Reading Incest - The University ...

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taken under her wing. When Edmund returns he falls in love with Adeliza, not knowing
she is the Countess' daughter and thus his own daughter and sister. They marry and at
that point the guilt-ridden Countess reveals the secret she has kept for all those years, and
a spectacularly violent ending ensues.
The Castle of Otranto focuses on patriarchal authority, which appears at first to
be subverted by female resistance, highlighting anxiety over the stability and harmony
within the household and family. The events in the plot reflect the challenges by
others—women and ‘peasants’—to aristocratic and patriarchal attempts to maintain not
only authority but also property. Manfred understands that women are necessary for him
to maintain ownership of Otranto for himself and his heirs, and to continue his family
line, and he marshals the power of his castle to control the women. As he exclaims at the
beginning of the tale, his “fate depends on having sons” (Walpole 9), which need drives
his increasingly obsessive and threatening actions. Having failed to produce a living heir,
when the sickly Conrad dies on his wedding day, Manfred tyrannically orders his wife
sent away to a convent—another place of female enclosure—so that he can get another
son. By any standard marriage to Isabella is overtly incestuous in nature; she is a
daughter-figure to Manfred, a double of Matilda. Not only would Isabella have been his
daughter-in-law, throughout the story he referred to himself as her guardian and father.
Isabella recognizes the wrongness of this at once:
Dry your tears, young lady—you have lost your bridegroom—yes, cruel fate, and
I have lost the hopes of my race! [said Manfred]. . . . I hope in a few years to
have reason to rejoice at the death of Conrad. Words cannot paint the
astonishment of Isabella. . . .she replied, Good my lord, do not doubt my
tenderness . . . wherever fate shall dispose of me, I shall always cherish his