Jubilee Close
By the turn of the nineteenth century, the supernatural was a staple in popular fiction. Retrospectively, this literary trend has been named the Gothic genre (Clery 1). Within this genre, there was a clear split between the “explained” supernatural, by authors such as Ann Radcliffe, and the “real” supernatural, by authors such as Matthew Gregory Lewis. As E.J. Clery puts it, “Novels where spirits are not rationalised, the most famous example in the 1790s being The Monk by Matthew Lewis, are ‘real’ Gothic” (110).
While the “explained” supernatural has seemingly supernatural elements which turn out to have natural explanations, The Monk is rife with supernatural elements that not only are confirmed as supernatural, but not questioned by the characters, which normalizes it as part of The Monk’s Gothic world. Because Lewis utilizes a real supernatural, it complicates the relationship between the natural and the supernatural, and the implications of such things on the characters. This book especially has a lot to say about women and the natural, and I will be analyzing the three types of women the book presents: the natural woman, the unnatural woman, and the supernatural woman. I will break down how The Monk sets up a configuration of a natural gender binary, then gives the reader women who transgress these binaries, and ultimately demonstrates what to do with women who do not adhere to this nature. The book presents three women who transgress the natural gender binary: the Prioress, the Bleeding Nun, and Matilda. Through analyzing these three characters, I will show that The Monk discusses two options for categorizing the transgressive women: the unnatural woman and the supernatural women. If a woman transgresses the natural gender binary, she cannot be allowed to belong in the natural world, so she must be served an earthly end, i.e. death, in order to transfer her to a non-natural world. Due to Lewis’s “real” Gothic, the supernatural is factored in and provides a loophole for the supernatural woman. Because she already does not belong to the natural world, an earthly end is not needed.
The Gothic genre is perfect breeding ground for discussion of otherwise taboo topics, as it “thrives on transgression” (Butter and Matthias 135). While critics like William Brewer argue that The Monk is progressive in its portrayal of female liberation and autonomy (193), I argue that although the book does give us seemingly progressive versions of womanhood, it clearly struggles to move beyond a conservative gender ideology. As Jeremy Chow puts it, the Gothic genre “typically features a sadistic male and masochistic heroine, and Lewis both conforms to and subverts this trope” (17). In terms of sheer content, the book does offer many characters who subvert the gender binary, but, as I will prove in this paper, the book fails to follow through with the promise of progression due to its ultimate treatment of transgressive women as unable to belong to the natural world.
Let us begin by defining how The Monk configures the natural gender binary, and thus, how the book configures the natural woman. The gender binary presented by The Monk has to do with active roles and passive roles, with the active role correlating to masculinity and the passive role correlating to femininity. There are two main ways that this manifests in The Monk: violence and sexuality. According to this natural gender binary, the man is the enactor of violence while the woman is the receiver of violence. Jeremy Chow discusses The Monk’s binary of gendered violence extensively in his article “Succubus Matters,” honing in on “heteronormativity’s demand that [the woman] serve exclusively as the recipient of violence” (6). The book defines violence, and adjacently, derivatives of violence such as aggression and valor, as naturally masculine. Similarly, sexual roles are rendered to be masculine activity and feminine passivity. We see much of this discussed through Ambrosio’s character, as the masculinity he increasingly moves into is that of the sexual aggressor. “Unnatural were [Ambrosio’s] vows of Celibacy; man was not created for such a state” (Lewis 172). Ambrosio’s sexual relationship with Matilda is one that does not adhere to the gender binary, due to Matilda’s transgressive womanhood. She renders Ambrosio passive and feminine, so when he meets Antonia, who fits perfectly into the natural gender binary, he desires her more than Matilda. He seeks a sexual relationship that fits into this natural gender binary of sexuality. Further, heterosexual pairings characterized as good are those that fit into the gender binary.
The heterosexual pairing that the book clearly supports the most is that of Raymond and Agnes. This is because they fit perfectly into both of these gender binaries, and because Agnes is the book’s exemplary natural woman. Her only “flaw” is having a child out of wedlock, but since the child dies, the symbol of that sin is erased, and the book forgives her because she is still characterized by virtue. She loves and marries a masculine man, and their story is one of a knight in shining armor and a rescued woman. Agnes is always the one receiving violence, and is never active in her sexuality. Since she never transgresses the gender binary, she is a natural woman, and she is given a happy ending. The book rewards her adherence to natural womanhood, and thus lets her belong in the natural world. With Agnes as the blueprint for the natural woman, we can evaluate other women in adherence or violation of the natural gender binary. One by one, I will analyze the three female characters who I believe transgress the natural gender binary presented by the book: the Prioress, Beatrice or the Bleeding Nun, and Matilda.
One of the categories the book provides for a woman who does not adhere to the natural gender binary is the unnatural woman, who transgresses the binary and must be given an earthly end. Before I get into the true examples, I will evaluate Marguerite, a character who seems to throw a wrench in this theory, but who I will show in fact does not. Marguerite murders her husband, Baptiste, by stabbing him to death, which is arguably one of the clearest instances of gender transgression in the book. Not only does she transgress the binary that says she must only be the recipient of violence, she commits the most violent action possible on her own male counterpart, and it is a penetrative act, behaviorally and symbolically subverting the gender binary. It is the events that unfold afterwards that seem questionable. It might seem that according to my analysis, this action should categorize her as an unnatural woman, but instead of being given an earthly end, she seemingly reverts back into the gender binary. She is restored into domestic happiness, reunited with her father and her children. It is as if the book forgets the moment of transgression. If she transgressed the gender binary, why is she allowed to belong to the natural world? The answer lies in the fact that her instance of transgression is simply that: one instance of transgression.
Her action of killing Baptiste could perhaps be categorized as a functional moment, one that serves the plot instead of serving her character. The book itself calls this moment “a horrible but necessary act” (Lewis 91), naming the action “necessary” and not something born out of her character. The book forgives her for the moment of transgression, for she immediately afterwards seeks to fulfill the gendered role of the mother for her children and the daughter for her father, revealing that she is characterized by this adherence to the gender binary, and not characterized by the one instance of transgression in a moment of necessity. It tracks with a pattern found in the book, where characters’ spiritual worth and virtue are not determined by any single action, but by a whole examination of their interiority. A similar example of this is how Agnes’s sin of premarital sex is forgiven by the book because her character is so virtuous as a whole. The book does not need to serve Marguerite an earthly end because she is not actually characterized by transgression, and thus is still a natural woman. She still belongs in the natural world. Therefore, we must specify that the unnatural woman is a woman who not only has a moment of transgression, but is characterized by her transgression. We will see this with the three other women I am focusing on, who do not simply transgress the binary through one action, but are characterized by this transgression.
Now, looking specifically at the unnatural woman and the supernatural woman as not just a woman who transgresses, but a transgressive woman, the clearest example of the unnatural woman is the Prioress of St. Clare, a female character who is highly masculinized, and who Brewer calls “easily the most patriarchal character in the novel” (195), given her extreme enforcement of rules. She transgresses the gender binary of violence, most obviously through her severe brutality towards Agnes. Her introduction in the novel is centered around this violence, and the first thing we see her do is have control over a man. Ambrosio asks the Prioress to be gentler with Agnes, and questions the benefit of her level of brutality. She immediately shuts him down. “‘Mitigate it, Father?’ interrupted the Lady Prioress” (Lewis 39). Not only does she not listen to him, she does not let him finish talking, taking control of the conversation and demeaning him with her wording. She positions herself as more violent than him, and thus out-masculinizes him. The Prioress heavily transgresses the gender binary by not adhering to natural womanhood, and is therefore deemed an unnatural woman deserving of an earthly end. She is stampeded by the angry mob of the people, and beaten to death. Even after she died, the mob “beat [her body], trod upon it, and ill-used it, till it became no more than a mass of flesh, unsightly, shapeless, and disgusting” (Lewis 275). The Prioress, an unnatural woman, is stomped out of the natural world.
The second category the book provides for a woman who does not adhere to the natural gender binary is the supernatural woman, who, while still unnatural and disallowed to belong in the natural world, is already outside of the natural world, so does not need to be removed through death. The character who highlights the difference between the unnatural woman and the supernatural woman is Beatrice, or the Bleeding Nun. I will use the name “Beatrice” to correlate to the part of her story when she is alive, and I will use the name “the Bleeding Nun” to correlate to the part of her story after she dies. Out of the several transgressive women, Beatrice/the Bleeding Nun has the unique position to represent both the unnatural woman and the supernatural woman. Beatrice transgresses the gender binary, and is thus an unnatural woman, so she is served an earthly end of death. Once she has been removed from the natural world, the Bleeding Nun is transgressive even in the afterlife, but this recategorizes her from an unnatural woman to a supernatural woman.
As an unnatural woman, Beatrice transgresses both the violence and sexuality of the gender binary. In her sexual relationships, she is masculinized through her role as the active pursuer. “She did not long confine her affections to one object…. She was not of an humour to keep her inclinations unknown” (Lewis 134). Earlier in the book, the narrator establishes that “Possession, which cloys Man, only increases the affection Woman” (Lewis 181). This means that within the natural gender binary defined by the book, natural womanhood is to be a loyal partner while natural manhood is to be a disloyal partner. Thus, Beatrice’s disloyalty to her sexual partners places her in the masculine role. Her transgression of the violent gender binary is clear: she murders her lover, the Baron Lindenberg. One might be reminded of my evaluation of Marguerite, and how the book writes off her murder as irrelevant to her natural womanhood. Beatrice and Marguerite both kill their male lover, and both stab him to death with a dagger. The difference between them is the context of the action. As I mentioned, Marguerite’s moment of transgression is labeled a “necessary act” (Lewis 91), but Beatrice’s violent transgression is premeditated out of desire for a new lover and not necessary at all. It is not a functional act, it is simply born from her character, and thus detracts from her natural womanhood. These sexual and violent gender binary transgressions clearly categorize Beatrice as an unnatural woman, and the book follows through with this by giving her an earthly end. Otto, her lover who murders her, was “Anxious to… free himself from a Woman, whose violent and atrocious character made him tremble with reason for his own safety, He had resolved on the destruction of his wretched Agent” (Lewis 135). Not only is her earthly end deserved due to her unnatural womanhood, it is brought down upon her as a result of her gender binary transgression threatening her male counterpart. As Chow puts it, “To remedy women who make men question their own safety, Otto demonstrates, is to murder them in cold blood” (Chow 23).
Beatrice shows how, as an unnatural woman, she had to be served an earthly end, but her recategorization into a supernatural woman complicates the finality of this. While Beatrice separately transgressed sexual gender binaries and violent gender binaries, the Bleeding Nun conflates the two and enacts sexual violence. Her sexual violence towards Raymond “intrudes upon systems of sexual violence in the novel that are otherwise only perpetrated by men against women” (Chow 7). This sexual violence ends up emasculating Raymond in the moment, and she executes a role reversal, positioning herself in the masculine role. “She grasped with her icy fingers my hand which hung lifeless upon the Coverture, and pressing her cold lips to mine, again repeated, ‘Raymond! Raymond! Thou art mine!’” (Lewis 125). She chants the verses that earlier Raymond chanted to who he thought was Agnes, which appropriates his sexual possession of Agnes into her sexual possession of him, effectively usurping his role as the active male. While she forces a clearly non-consensual kiss on him, “the faculties of [his] body [are] all suspended” (Lewis 125). Raymond is rendered wholly passive by simply her presence. She has complete control over him, “frustrating Raymond’s desire to play the role of a masterful cavalier by putting him in the position of a passive, possessed love-object” (Brewer 203). Clearly, the Bleeding Nun is just as transgressive of both sexual and violent gender binaries as Beatrice was. Though, while Beatrice was served an earthly end because she cannot belong to the natural world, the Bleeding Nun, by reason of being a ghost, is recategorized as a supernatural woman, and thus already belongs to an unnatural world. One may point to Raymond burying the Bleeding Nun’s remains as a form of an earthly end, but it does not change anything about the Bleeding Nun’s place in the supernatural world, simply catalyzing her complete transition from an unnatural woman to a supernatural woman. The supernatural woman has no basis for an earthly end because her place in the natural world does not exist anyway.
The final woman I will analyze is Matilda, the exemplary supernatural woman. As a demon, she was never human in the first place—only pretending to be as such—and so never belonged to the natural world. It is worth including here that arguments can certainly be made for Matilda being a non-woman, since the gender of the demon she turns out to be is ambiguous, and I am not dissuading that idea. However, I am focusing on the characters the book presents as women, which she certainly falls into, as the reveal that she is a demon comes at the very end, relatively inconsequential to her character. She is definitively a non-man, and for most of the book she is treated as simply a transgressive woman. There is a thin line between those two things. Matilda’s introduction to the novel is an introduction of gender transgression, as she at first disguises herself as a man, Rosario. She wields the fullest force of gender transgression throughout, even leading Ambrosio to the most gender transgressive location in the book: the sepulchre, which lies half underneath the Abbey and half underneath the Convent, a symbol of androgyny.
Matilda’s specific gender transgressions lie in her aggression and her active role as sexual pursuer, both outlined through her emasculation of Ambrosio. The book goes out of its way to point out her masculinization in exact words. “Now She assumed a sort of courage and manliness in her manners and discourse” (Lewis 178). This defines courage as masculine, a trait she repeatedly outdoes Ambrosio in. She is also called “cruel and unfeminine” (Lewis 178), similarly defining cruelty as masculine. Brewer points out that “Matilda is the aggressor in her relationship with Ambrosio…. it is Ambrosio who blushes” (197). Blushing is an easily recognizable trope for the passive female, even seen elsewhere in the book in binary-fitting characters like Antonia. This is a clear emasculation of Ambrosio, and something that threatens his own masculinity. The book’s answer to this emasculation of Ambrosio is that Matilda must not be a natural woman, and because she does not fit into the binary in the first place, she uproots the roles of the whole dynamic in the first place. Throughout the whole book, Matilda is a clearly transgressive woman, and so she does not adhere to the book’s configuration of natural womanhood. The book thus categorizes Matilda as a supernatural woman, for not only is she a sorcerer, but she is revealed to be a demon, which is otherworldly by definition. She cannot remain in the natural world, and this is answered by the sheer fact of her supernaturality. In fact, both Matilda’s and the Bleeding Nun’s final moments see them visibly leaving the natural realm, as Matilda extravagantly disappears into presumably the underworld and the Bleeding Nun, through the burial, is able to move on from haunting the natural realm, which is home for neither of them.
The Monk configures a natural gender binary based on violence and sexuality, and it discusses what happens when women transgress this binary. These women do not adhere to their natural womanhood, and thus the book deems them unfit to belong in the natural world. The solution to this is based on which of two categories the book puts her in: the unnatural woman or the supernatural woman. The unnatural woman, represented by the Prioress and Beatrice, is served an earthly end, i.e. death, in order to remove her from the natural world. The supernatural woman, represented by The Bleeding Nun and Matilda, does not need to be served an earthly end because she is already removed from the natural world by the fact of her supernaturality. Through this process, The Monk demonstrates an incorporation of the supernatural into Gothic notions of natural womanhood.
Bibliography
Brewer, William. “Transgendering in Matthew Lewis’s The Monk.” Gothic Studies, vol. 6, no. 2, Nov. 2004, pp. 192–207.
Butter, Stella, and Matthias Eitelmann. “The Organic Uncanny: Taboo, Sexuality, and Death in British Gothic Novels.” Taboo and Transgression in British Literature from the Renaissance to the Present, edited by Stefan Horlacher et al., Palgrave Macmillan (London), 2010, pp. 135–57. EBSCOhost,
research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=f8ffa3cd-9d75-301b-810d-5c5d32997657. Chow, Jeremy. “Succubus Matters.” ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830, vol. 12, no. 1, May 2022.
Clery, E. J. The Rise of Supernatural Fiction, 1762–1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Print. Cambridge Studies in Romanticism.
Lewis, Matthew. The Monk. Oxford University Press, 2016.
