Reading character(s) in Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian

In “Imagery of the Surface in the Gothic Novel, Eve Sedgwick points out that: “In The Italian, ‘character’ is often a pivotal word in expressing the theme of writing on flesh”—in other words, “character” can signify (1) a person’s moral quality and (2) a graphic symbol on a page. Both “mark” exteriorly an internal meaning, be it a (“real” or fictional) person or an abstract concept being conveyed on the page. I would add to Sedgwick’s idea of the dual usage of character a third signification: “character” can also denote a “real” person—as in, “He is a real character,”—and of course refers to fictional “characters” as well. To that end, I posit that The Italian—as Radcliffe often puts it—“throws light on” readers’ internal and external landscapes, and works on/in multiple psychological layers.

Examples of how Radcliffe uses “character,” which Sedgwick points out, include:

“… the character of Vivaldi lay before him as a map” (52).

“The silence and deep repose of the landscape, served to impress this character more awfully on the heart” (65).

“A character of peculiar sadness was on her brow” (91).

“Their visages, with view exceptions, seemed stamped with the characters of demons” (197).

The very survival of Ellena’s Rosalba is dependent upon her ability to “read” the “character” of those around her. (See: Deidre Shauna Lynch’s seminal The Economy of Character for an in-depth examination of how the term “character” evolved during the eighteenth and into the nineteenth century.)

In some cases, I argue below, her innocent psyche—what she does not perceive—protects her. This illustrates the double bind of women: they must on the one hand be experienced enough to read characters around them, while on the other hand be inexperienced/innocent enough to not challenge the patriarchy too much, or in the wrong circumstances. (Because character could be interpreted, and was expected to reveal a person’s “natural” tendency “beneath the surface,” This must be done “naturally,” in accordance with the Kantian and Burkean aesthetics of the time in which Radcliffe wrote—it could not be conniving or manipulative, as in the character-on-the-page, of the Marchesa, which illustrates character type that can/does occur in “real” life outside the Gothic pages of this text).

To add yet another layer of complexity, in addition, due to the stakes and considerations of the patriarchy depicted in The Italian, Ellena’s physical and social survival is tied-up in Vivaldi’s abilities to navigate and properly answer to the Inquisition on her/his behalf.

A thousand times she turned about the eventful paper, endeavored to trace the lines with her fingers, and to guess their import, thus enveloped in mystery; while she experienced all the various torture that the consciousness of having in her very hand the information, on a timely knowledge of which her life, perhaps, depended, without being able to understand it, could inflict (132).

She is thus a dependent of herself, and also is Vivaldi’s dependent, whom she has not (yet) married and whose very relationship called her behavior into question in the first place. (The novelist goes to great lengths to show Ellena evading Vivaldi’s gaze and advances, which Greenfield’s “Veiled Desire” essay more than adequately shows).

Radcliffe knew all about this double-dependence which the Inquisition scenes show. In the court of public opinion, Radcliffe was dependent upon not only her own psychological savvy and skill in reading the public—her fate, like Ellena’s, as a reputable, respectable author on par with her literary mentors, Shakespeare and Milton, was dependent upon males (1) who were beyond her control, (2) with whom she never asked to be associated, but who claimed/marked her craft/territory as their own. I am specifically talking about Matthew Lewis and his claiming of Radcliffe’s Gothic genre in the visually over the top, nondescript parody of her genre, The Monk, against which she launched a public defense in the famous essay “On the Supernatural in Poetry” and more elaborately, her final novel published in her lifetime—a real mic-drop, in my opinion—The Italian.

After the Monk, Ann Radcliffe’s characters—and her character—were on the line. Not only would it be necessary for Radcliffe to defend herself and by implication, her reputation and her character; she would also rely on men such as Vivaldi, to vouch for her in the patriarchal system in which she wrote/engaged her craft. In “On the Supernatural in Poetry” she invokes Shakespeare, Milton and other literary men. The critical introduction to The Italian assigns Radcliffe’s work value according to the men who found value in it: John Keats, Wordsworth—and not so much Coleridge.

I end with, as promised above, a scene in which Ellena’s post-traumatic psyche protects her, psychologically as well as physically. When she learns that Schedoni is her father, she cannot hold two conflicting views in her head: that her father created her and that her father was attempting to destroy (and possibly also rape) her. This cognitive dissonance allows her to express gratitude to him, (rightly) crediting that he spared her life but (wrongly) believing that he spared her from someone other than himself. Otherwise, Schedoni in all likelihood would have killed her and not seen a personal gain in keeping her alive and marrying her off to Vivaldi, the Marchesa’s son.

Works Cited

Lynch, Deidre Shauna. The Economy of Character.

Schmitt, Cannon. “Techniques of Terror.”

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. “Imagery of the Surface in the Gothic Novel.”