corrupt the mind of youths.5 James Watts notes that “what was largely at stake in the negative reviews of The Monk, especially, was the regulation of cultural production” (84).
Yet, the public are afraid of the open, unbridled remarks that are likely to violate the regulations of society. What concerns the general public most is that a Member of Parliament representing them dare write such a book. However, it is the author’s poetic
5 Coleridge praised its presentation as a work of art while once knowing what the initiation of MP represent he derogates and scolds the writer for creating a horrible story that may corrupt the youth. Concerning the creation and his identity, J. M. S. Thompkins quotes Coleridge’s words—“‘Yes! the author of the Monk signs himself LEGISLATOR,’ wrote Coleridge in the Critical; ‘we stare! and tremble’” See J. M. S. Thompkins, The Popular Novel in England 1770-1800. (Connecticut: Greenwood, 1976), 278.
imagination that dares to contradict the social regulation and break the boundary of morality in novels. And the fun of reading does come from the breaking through of reality and let free of imagination regardless of those social conventions.
C. The concept of excess: violence in sexual abuse and religious authority
The sublime is mainly presented by the quality of immensity, in size, amount, length, strength, and depth. Burke writes that “I know of nothing sublime which is not some modifications of power” (59). The sublime is associated with things that are able to cause negative passions—terror or pain. Burke explicates that vast power “is extremely remote from that neutral character” of pain or pleasure (Burke 59). More often than not, it tends to generate “the idea of pain and above all of death,” both of which in their highest degree are most prevalent in affecting people and trap them in terror (Burke 59). Burke clarifies that
“Pain is always inflicted by a power in some way superior, because we never submit to pain willingly. So that strength, violence, pain and terror, are ideas that rush in upon the mind together” (Burke 60). Consequently, the feelings of pain make power least agreeable.
According to William Day, the self exists on a par with the Other in Gothic fantasy.
“The fantasy defines its world as a place where there exists one self; everything else in that world is Other, an enemy to the desires and integrity of the self” (Day 19). For Ambrosio, the Other is not the corpse or ghost, but his pursuit for corporeal satisfaction. The void beneath the veil of his misogynist desire shrinks his ego down to a size that can easily be manipulated by Matilda. The aim of the gothic reveals the author’s scheme of “reducing [protagonists] to the state of nonbeing, absorbing them into the Other” (Day 19). The Other, made up of void and loss, has the power to split Ambrosio’s self and devours him. He cannot but give in to Matilda’s inflation of ego.
The concept of power is materialized in Ambrosio’s sexual abuse of the heroine, and his
thirst for dominance. He is blind to the danger of the enjoyment of insubstantial things, such as satisfying his excessive lust, and thirst for domination and authority. For instance, Ambrosio enjoys his high position, when attended by the monks to the door of his Cell—“he dismissed them with an air of conscious superiority, in which Humility’s semblance
combated with the reality of pride” (39). Ambrosio’s excessive sexuality and his craving for respect from the crowd firmly grasp him and blind his conscience. Considering his situation, his pursuit brings about intense tension for fear of the public’s revelation. However, the tension decreases promptly when the secrets are once again covered or eliminated by his prisoner’s death. What he encounters enables him to secure himself in self-preservation.
Constantly placed in the sublime atmosphere, Ambrosio gradually gets used to relying on the supernatural power, which finally prepares his fall into the irretrievable abyss. When Ambrosio is dropped from the precipice by the demon, his situation takes a sharp turn from the sublime to the real horror of death. Henceforth, “the coupling of destiny and victim intensifies the reader’s sense of horror by predicting [the victims’] inevitable death” (Behr 182).
The excess of lust and thirst for power drive Ambrosio to perform his power and authority in keeping with the stern rules of convent life. Behr expounds how the villain is impelled to realize his desire: “once the hero-villain’s imagination is seized, his unbounded masculine activity impels him to transform imagination into reality… [For example], the vision of Antonia bathing is what propels him further into murder and eventual rape” (108).
Only fear and terror can fully describe the signal that Agnes receives when her affair becomes known to Ambrosio: “His words sounded like thunder to her ears: She awoke from her
torpidity only to be sensible of the dangers of her situation” (46). What Ambrosio inflicts on his victim represents the invisible intimidation that threatens her life for whether he condemns or forgives determines her future in the convent. That is, he has the power to
decide whether she can stay in the convent as if he is the authority itself. On the other hand, his physical power is shown by his brutal violence toward Elvira and Antonia. The former is stifled to death by his strength; the latter surrenders to him for the same reason. He pushes one unto the verge of death, that is, the horror of death in essence. To feel horror, there must be a bit of hope left in the characters’ mind; otherwise, they would give up the hope of escape from the dangerous scene, and then feel none but death. Therefore, hope for escape from danger, pain, or even death incurs dreadful feelings to those who experience them, and brings up the sublime effects in reading each dangerous episode described. Since the characters are often placed in the situation of desperation, the reader can undergo similar experience while the difference is that they do not have to experience the desperation in person. Their experience conforms to self-preservation in the Sublime.