The uncategorized gender type and its significance

As a stereotyped character, Matilda/Rosario is the most honorable before her/his ambiguous nature is revealed to Ambrosio. As a man, both Ambrosio and Rosario

correspond to the norm of honor at the outset, before they turn lascivious and cruel. Though

they are the antithesis of the positive traits, their being branded with hypocrisy marks the importance of society’s values on both gender’s types. What they say contradicts what they perform and reflect on their choices. More complex than other characters, good or evil, they have more opportunity to perform their thoughts and judgment and exploit their free wills.

However, rather than framing their lives as performances of free will, Lewis makes his characters here subject to the manipulation of the society’s values.

Rosario’s accounts of the made-up story convince the reader as well as Ambrosio of its validity. Regardless of Rosario’s disguise of double identity as demon, he represents the uncategorized man/woman. The Rosario is “citing” the gender’s stereotype to suit to society’s value; otherwise, his manner and behavior cannot transmit to the reader to offer suggestive meanings. On the other hand, if the cover of the numinous is removed, the discussion of Rosario’s conversation with Ambrosio reveals the ambiguity of sexuality. As the distinct features to depict the masculinity and femininity, there should not be any gray area of sexuality in terms of gender. However, their interactions disclose the feelings of uncategorized kinds:

[To Ambrosio Rosario] looked up with a respect approaching idolatry: He sought his company with the most attentive assiduity, and eagerly seized every means to ingratiate himself in his favor.

When [Ambrosio] spoke to [Rosario], He insensibly assumed a tone milder than was usual to him (42).

Their interactions before Rosario reveal that his other identity as female is nothing like the interactions between men. His eagerness to approach Ambrosio resembles a man in courtship, while his gesture signals womanly docility. As for Ambrosio, the mild attitudes toward his novice are similar with citing a sexed role, and showing the sign of fluidity of his

desires.

As Butler suggests, the identification of desiring the same sex “is a phantasmatic

trajectory and resolution of desire (BM 99). Though it may not indicate that the monk has a liaison with the youth, it implies that “sexuality is as much motivated by the fantasy of retrieving prohibited objects as by the desire to remain protected from the threat of

punishment that such a retrieval might bring on” (BM 100). The threat of being punished by traversing same-sex love is implicitly restored to a passing explanation to cover up the

indications of homosexuality:

In short [Ambrosio] loved him will all the affection of a Father. He could not help sometimes indulging a desire secretly to see the face of his Pupil; But his rule of self-denial extended even to curiosity, and prevented him from communicating his wishes to the Youth (43).

There is a fluidity of sexual desire indicated in the paragraph above that Lewis swifts it into a paternal love. The potential same-sex desire impedes him to continue their communication further for fear that too much indulgence of affection toward Rosario may as well result in the prohibited love. He, accordingly, impedes his affections to develop or cultivate in any way but stop at the paternal level. The characters are not only citing the performativity of gendered type but also citing the sexuality of normality.

Agnes has but to fall to the hands of the Lady Prioress partly because there are third persons present. Ambrosio has to perform his severity in order that the name of purity will not be stained. Yet he feels “a secret pang at his heart… He therefore detained the Prioress, and ventured to pronounce some words in favour of the delinquent” (49). His oscillation derives partly from his sympathy with Agnes, and partly from his own guilt incurred by the woman’s curse. In public places, his inner self can never reconcile the demands of religion and his personal preference. He has little sympathy when Agnes confesses her secret

pregnancy but in the case of Rosario “did He lay aside his habitual severity” (42). His secret preference for his novice determines his attitudes and judgment.

Before the monk finds out about Antonia’s existence, to Matilda, owing to their closeness, he is gentle only in private. He makes little effort to cover up his tenderness, while after he discovers the beauty of the new-comer, he begins to act like a coward, someone undecided on everything. On the other hand, Matilda transforms from someone obedient into someone who is more determined, assured, and ready to keep one’s reputation at any cost, even to abet one to murder, and violate the religious vows. She transforms into someone with masculine traits; as Brewer puts it, “she resists allegiance to established gender roles and rules of behaviors. She represents sexual instability, a sexual instability that threatens not only Ambrosio’s sanity, but, in as much as he is a religious leader in Madrid, the rigidly authoritarian structure of the society in which he lives” (196). Her playing with the social codes is so distinct that she defies any categorizations.

Antonia’s presence marks the break of Ambrosio’s public and inner self, as is the case with Matilda. When she performs the identity of Rosario, he is nothing like a man for the description used on him is nothing like that would use on a man: his countenance is

“beautiful and noble” (42). His traits do not distinguish him from ladies in general:

“[Rosario] seemed fearful of being recognized and none had ever seen his face” (42). A sense of timidity and awe shows on his face like that of Antonia when she goes to the assemblage and encounters Lorenzo and his companion. There is little difference with Antonia’s to cover up her features in public places. Without Lorenzo’s intruding to unveil her, or her aunt’s order, Antonia might as well keep herself veiled for “it is not the custom in Murcia” where she is raised and also because her timidity and shyness (11). In Madrid, however, to unveil in holy places is the custom. The body is not neutral in meanings;

therefore, the materials that cover them are endowed with the meaning of sexuality.¹⁵ Antonia is forced to do like the others following the custom restricted on women. Her timidity resembles Rosario’s: he veils himself voluntarily and is seen involuntarily.

Antonia is performing her society’s values through her gender, while Rosario’s

performance of covering his features puts him on the superior position to other monks. In the monastery, little is known but that he is of high rank, rich, shy of company. If judged from the monk’s perspectives, Rosario is very unlike the other men, and bears much resemblance to women. Rosario’s seclusion from other monks makes him not just a

mystery in the monastery but presents him as first icon of otherness in The Monk as well as in the Monastery, for his characterization as the identity of Rosario is close to the image of a woman in men’s cloaks: gentle, docile, and timid. As Butler suggests, the concept of gender’s performativity is reinforced in the culture by means of reiteration of certain behaviors and performance based on the society’s values.