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Volume 3, Chapter 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Mysteries of Udolpho, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Marriage, Love, and Inheritance
The Wonders of Nature
Mystery and Superstition
Mortality
The Value of Education and Art
Summary
Analysis
Emily feels better after some sleep. Annette stayed with her through the night, and she explains that she followed Emily the previous night when she went to meet Barnardine. Annette thinks that perhaps Count Morano was the one orchestrating this new scheme to kidnap Emily. Emily requests to see Montoni about Madame Montoni.
The Udolpho sections of the novel all fall into a rhythm, with nighttime being a time of paranoia and drama but daytime being more sedate. Free of her nighttime superstition, Emily realizes that her fears about the supernatural were misplaced, and that the one tormenting her is still Count Morano. Once again, seemingly supernatural events in the story turn out to have a rational explanation.
Themes
Although Montoni initially agrees to a meeting with Emily, he later sends a messenger in order to postpone it to the next day. Night falls, and Emily again thinks of the mysterious music she heard recently. Around midnight, she hears a weak moaning noise come from somewhere. Out her window, she sees a human figure moving along the rampart, which she believes must be supernatural. She then wonders whether perhaps Count Morano has snuck back into the castle, or if bandits are still trying to overtake the castle. She decides to stay up to watch again the next night.
Whereas Emily learns to face her problems more directly, as she did when she had to directly confront mortality in the form of a corpse, Montoni keeps finding excuses to avoid confronting his own problems. His delays in talking to Emily seem to suggest a bad fate for Madame Montoni, but they could also be Montoni’s own procrastination. The mysterious figure that Emily sees in this passage suggests that, as events at Udolpho come to a head, she may not even be safe during the daytime anymore.
Themes
