57 pages • 1 hour read
Matthew LewisThe Monk: A Romance
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1796A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2, Chapters 1-2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2, Chapter 1 Summary
Don Raymond’s first-person narration continues. Arriving at the Castle of Lindenberg, Don Raymond encounters Don Lorenzo’s sister, Agnes; the baron and baroness are Agnes’s uncle and aunt. Agnes’s parents intend for her to remain at the Castle of Lindenberg until she joins the Convent of St. Clare in Madrid. Agnes has no desire to enter a convent, but her mother vowed during her pregnancy that her child would join a religious order if she survived its birth. Don Raymond and Agnes soon fall in love. Don Raymond shares his desire to marry Agnes with the baroness; the baroness, who hoped to win Don Raymond’s affections for herself, flies into a jealous rage and banishes Don Raymond from the castle.
Determined to find some means of “rescuing Agnes from the power of her tyrannical Aunt” (112), Agnes and Don Raymond (assisted by Theodore) concoct an elaborate scheme to free Agnes from the castle. The Castle of Lindenberg is rumored to be haunted by the terrifying specter of “the Bleeding Nun.” The ghost is said to walk through the castle on the fifth of May every fifth year; on that night, the gates are left open to allow the ghost to leave the castle. Agnes plans to disguise herself as the Bleeding Nun and escape through the open gates; Don Raymond will wait with a carriage to complete the elopement.
On the fateful night, the figure of the Bleeding Nun meets Don Raymond outside the castle gates. Believing that their plan has succeeded, Don Raymond hurries the figure into the carriage. However, a violent storm descends, the carriage horses run wild, and the carriage is smashed to pieces in a violent accident. Don Raymond, gravely wounded in the crash, believes that Agnes has disappeared, as he can find no trace of her. Recovering in a local inn, however, Don Raymond is visited at night by the horrifying specter of the Bleeding Nun, who recites wedding vows to him. Don Raymond realizes that he eloped not with Agnes in a ghostly disguise but with the true ghost. The Bleeding Nun continues to visit Don Raymond and recite their wedding vows each night; Don Raymond grows so ill that he is near death. Theodore enlists the help of a man, “the Stranger,” rumored to be a sorcerer. Performing magical rites, the mysterious Stranger exorcises the ghost of the Bleeding Nun. The Stranger also reveals the Bleeding Nun’s history; in life, the Bleeding Nun broke her monastic vows, engaged in “unbridled debauchery,” and murdered her lover.
Finally free from the Bleeding Nun, Don Raymond is horrified to discover that Agnes’s relatives have committed her to the Convent of St. Clare and that she has already taken vows to become a nun. Don Raymond, however, hopes that he can use his family’s influence in Rome to have Agnes’s vows annulled by a papal decree. He disguises himself as a gardener and visits Agnes repeatedly in the Convent of St. Clare. Eventually, the two make love, and Agnes becomes pregnant. Don Raymond intends to remove Agnes from the convent and marry her as soon as possible.
Part 2, Chapter 2 Summary
The “History of Don Raymond” ends, and the novel returns to a third-person omniscient narration. Don Lorenzo is angry that Don Raymond compromised Agnes before marriage, but he ultimately forgives Don Raymond and trusts his intention to marry Agnes.
Don Lorenzo visits Antonia and her mother, Elvira, assuring them of his influence with the Marquis de las Cisternas (Don Raymond). During the visit, Elvira detects Antonia’s interest in Don Lorenzo. Afterward, she advises Antonia to suppress any feelings that she has for Don Lorenzo, as the granddaughter of a “Shoe-maker” cannot hope to marry a nobleman. Don Lorenzo requests Elvira’s permission to court Antonia; Elvira refuses him, insisting that “curses accompany an unequal alliance” (164). She shows him a poem written by her late husband, entitled “The Exile,” expressing grief at his estrangement from his family and home. Although Don Lorenzo assures Elvira of his intention to marry Antonia, Elvira refuses to allow Don Lorenzo to see Antonia until he receives explicit permission from his family to marry her.
Don Lorenzo and Don Raymond repeatedly attempt to visit Agnes at the convent; the prioress angrily refuses to allow them to see Agnes, insisting that she is too ill for visitors. The papal decree releasing Agnes from her vows arrives; Don Lorenzo and Don Raymond confront the prioress with the order, demanding that she release Agnes from the convent immediately. With vicious satisfaction, the prioress informs the two men that Agnes died in childbirth and already lies buried in the convent’s crypt. At this news, Don Raymond succumbs to a grief so strong that it resembles “Madness.” Don Lorenzo believes that the prioress is lying about the cause of Agnes’s death and swears “to take a severe vengeance upon the unfeeling Prioress” if he uncovers any evidence of wrongdoing (171).
Part 2, Chapters 1-2 Analysis
Don Raymond’s history further emphasizes the problem of “tyrannical” relatives and the power they hold over young women. The novel portrays convents as complicit with these domestic tyrants, as they serve as convenient sites of imprisonment and punishment for young women who disobey family members. Class differences continue to represent a major obstacle to romantic fulfillment, as Elvira forbids Don Lorenzo from courting Antonia until he can prove that his family will accept her; the novel suggests that social constraints continually thwart romantic desire.
The most significant development within these chapters, however, is the eruption of the supernatural into the novel’s previously rational world. An entirely new level of reality now plays a determining role in shaping the fates of the novel’s characters: Don Raymond fails to rescue Agnes, and Agnes is confined to a convent from which she cannot escape, precisely because of the spectral intervention of the ghost of the Bleeding Nun.
The Bleeding Nun is a richly symbolic figure, embodying multiple themes within The Monk. The Bleeding Nun represents the cruel religious superstition that seals Agnes’s fate—a far more dramatic version of the religious vow that separates Agnes from Don Raymond. The Bleeding Nun is also the novel’s most significant symbol of religious hypocrisy. The nun possesses all the typical signs and symbols of (Catholic) religious devotion: a habit, a veil, a rosary, and even a lamp (suggesting religious illumination). However, these traditional religious symbols are horribly stained with blood and accompanied by a knife, rendering them the terrifying accessories of a monster. The Bleeding Nun also foreshadows the full extent and horror of Ambrosio’s fall; like Ambrosio, the Bleeding Nun first sinned through sexual excess before committing murder. The Bleeding Nun provides another example of debauched and degraded religious faith, developing the theme of Religion, Power, and Hypocrisy.
The Bleeding Nun further suggests a horror of female sexuality within the novel’s framework of Sexual Desire, Danger, and Deviance. In a reversal of the typical dynamics of a male seducer and female victim, the Bleeding Nun forces her attentions on Don Raymond, who is paralyzed and unable to resist her. The narrative threatens that female sexuality may take monstrous and emasculating forms—fears later explored in the novel’s depiction of Matilda following her seduction of Ambrosio. The Bleeding Nun may also represent a more general fear of female power; even after he is freed from the Bleeding Nun, Don Raymond finds himself in a similarly emasculated position in his dealings with the Prioress of St. Clare. It is only by appealing to papal authority that Don Raymond can regain mastery over the corrupt prioress.
The Bleeding Nun also introduces the problem of how characters should interact with the supernatural world. Alongside the novel’s prophetic dreams and omens, ghosts, demons, magic, and sorcery now influence the fates of the novel’s characters. The Monk supposes the existence of a supernatural world separate from religious beliefs concerning the supernatural, and the novel portrays this other supernatural world as simultaneously enchanting and horrifying. Theodore is forced to call in a magician to exorcise the Bleeding Nun, and the novel portrays this magician as an awe-inspiring character and “a Man of majestic presence” (130). At the same time, the novel suggests that this magician acquired his powers and knowledge only after being cursed by God. The novel suggests that the supernatural represents a powerful and alluring yet dangerous force (much like the character of Matilda in Ambrosio’s narrative).
