MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

In this paper, I take a closer look at Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, which reveals the existence of incest within the story via its main characters. The incestuous nature evolves due to the characters’ hunger for authority, and lordship. In the most obvious example, as Manfred’s desperation to find an heir and to maintain lordship increases, it leads to his incestuous ways. I explore each of Manfred’s extreme actions that are driven by his incestuous desires, and through various examples, I explain that Manfred surely recognizes his incestuous acts. While characters such as Manfred and Frederic act upon incestuous intentions, many of the other characters are oblivious to their immoral nature. I explore how other character’s desperation leads to their submission to incestuous actions, as well as Fredric’s character whose desires lead him to be openly incestuous. While others recognize the presence of incest and rail against it, it – ironically – does not prevent them from later falling into the same incestuous behaviors. In the end, this text — widely considered the first Gothic novel — uses early horror tropes as a means of showing that immorality among humans is even more terrifying than the supernatural occurrences.