Satire in The Monk: Exposure and Reformation
by Ann Campbell
[Campbell, Ann. "Satire in The Monk: Exposure
and Reformation." Romanticism On the Net 8 (November 1997)
<http://users.ox.ac.uk/~scat0385/satire.html>]
Matthew Lewis punctuates the plot of The Monk (1796) with several bizarre,
grisly and pornographic episodes; this
"excessive, maniacal movement from one orgiastic episode to another,"
as Alok Bhalla has described it, makes it difficult to
discern any clear narrative progression in the novel. (1) A plot synopsis
of The Monk would probably follow Ambrosio's moral
debasement, necessarily excluding most of the characters that populate
the novel. These minor characters and forgettable
exchanges are frequently satiric. Satire permeates the novel, obtruding
into even the most gruesome scenes, but seems most
significant when incidental. Episodes like Raymond's adventure at the
inn with Baptiste and Theodore's visit to the convent
disguised as a beggar distract from the story of Ambrosio. The bluntness
of the satire displayed by these and other secondary
characters in minor episodes, however, highlights the centrality of
satire to the main narrative. Lewis aligns himself with the
tradition of reformative verse satire by introducing the novel with
an imitation of Horace, and he continues to mimic Horace's
urbanity throughout the novel. He models his narrator's stance on Juvenal's.
Though few readers would describe Lewis's tone
of ridicule and disgust as "declamatory grandeur," he seems to be attempting
just that, especially in scenes like the opening
Cathedral scene. (2)
Lewis, however, asserts his place amongst satire's most venerable figures
to make his repugnant subject matter palatable rather
than to reform a corrupt society or religious institution. As a satirist
it is Lewis's responsibility to expose whatever he finds
beneath any deceptive exterior. The most vicious discoveries are supposed
to act as purgatives for his readers: harsh but
salutary. Lewis dissects the objects of his satire as if he were performing
an autopsy of them, exposing layer after layer of
corruption in a relentless process. The trajectory of satire, inwards
and penetrating, is also that of the novel's narrative structure;
Lewis penetrates forcibly into the Abbey, into Ambrosio, and Ambrosio
forcibly penetrates the female body by raping Antonia
in the novel's climactic scene.
Bakhtin, in his discussion of laughter, examines the way in which social
interrogation can be viewed metaphorically as a
dissection. Although Bakhtin primarily addresses comedy, his observations
are equally applicable to the learned wit of satire.
He treats the definitive characteristic of satire: it forcibly exposes
an essential quality of an institution, class, etc., which
individuals associated with the ridiculed body have concealed either
through ignorance, hypocrisy, or affectation. He describes
this process as a metaphorical "dismemberment" of the object of ridicule,
an image particularly apt for the Gothic novel, a
subgenre in which metaphorical dismemberment becomes literally enacted:
Everything that makes us laugh is close at
hand, all comical creativity works in a zone of maximal proximity.
Laughter has the remarkable power of making
an object come up close, of drawing it into a zone of crude contact
where one can finger it familiarly on all
sides, turn it upside down, inside out, peer at it from above and below,
break open its external shell, look into its
center, doubt it, take it apart, dismember it, lay it bare and expose it,
examine it freely and experiment with it.
Laughter demolishes fear and piety before an object, before a world. (3)
Bakhtin describes the process by which laughter, as Habegger describes
it, "punctuates choice lies," leaving the artificiality of
social codes exposed and vulnerable. (4) Although satire may free the
reader from slavish obedience to the object of ridicule, it
offers no replacement for the degraded object. Exposure contains potential
both for the radical undermining and conservative
reinforcement of social conventions: satire disrupts the social order
by "dissecting" it and revealing its arbitrariness, but ultimately
reinforces it by offering no natural (or unarbitrary) alternatives
to convention.
Bakhtin's observations complicate Lewis's pretensions as a reformative
satirist. The classical satirists and their neoclassical
imitators claimed that their verses would shame readers out of deceit
and folly, a stance hardly credible but long accepted by
many readers. The standard of virtue which satirists adhered to and
which readers were supposed to imbibe is usually termed
conservative, the political and social equivalent of the "middle way."
The satirist's authoritative tone and control over his verses
helped establish his moral superiority over his readers; the terse,
highly structured style of verse satire and the selection of
appropriate anecdotes displayed the satirist's grasp of history and
his ability to order historical examples according to moral
precepts. Lewis, a novelist rather than a verse satirist, has difficulty
evincing moral and intellectual superiority over his readers.
His characters are fictitious, the setting ambiguous, and his style
loose and episodic. Satire in his work, then, cannot function as
it did in the work of the classical satirists he invokes. The classical
satirists and their neoclassical followers dissected social
convention and political faction in a controlled manner which appeared
to have a clear didactic purpose. In Lewis's sprawling
novel, however, when he dismembers the objects of his satire he finds
nothing beneath each layer but another layer of
corruption.
The many layers of Lewis's novel, as discussed earlier, vary in their
relevance to Ambrosio's temptation and fall. The satire
displayed during insignificant episodes is unrelated to any moral or
political purpose Lewis might have claimed for his novel, and
therefore most revealing of the role of satire in the novel as a whole.
Two minor episodes are worth examining: the Baptiste
episode and Theodore's adventure as a supposed beggar inside the convent
walls. In some instances, though a scene is
pertinent to the central narrative, Lewis's attention to detail seems
excessive. Extraneous dialogue and excessive detail in an
important scene constitute another sort of minor scene. For example,
Lewis devotes several pages during the opening scene to
the interaction between Leonella, the two "Cavaliers" -- only one of
whom is really important to the plot -- and Antonia. (5)
Though Lewis records the dialogue between these four characters exactly,
he gives only a brief description of the effect
Ambrosio's sermon has on its listeners, not even paraphrasing its content.
After examining the role of satire in these minor
scenes, I will consider two important scenes, Lorenzo's declaration
to the crowd at the Festival of St. Clare, and Ambrosio's
rape of Antonia. The type of satire displayed in the minor scenes--a
gleeful dismemberment with no clear didactic
purpose--constitutes a model for the central narrative.
I will begin my analysis where Lewis begins his novel, in the Cathedral
where Antonia and Leonella join Madrid's most
fashionable to await Ambrosio's sermon. The auditors, as the narrator
makes clear, do not attend Ambrosio's sermon out of
piety. The narrator's tone is one of urbanity and worldliness, stripping
the audience of its pretensions while offering no
alternative vision of moral reform or sincere conviction:
Do not encourage the idea that the Crowd was
assembled either from motives of piety or thirst of information. ...
Very few were influenced by those reasons;
and in a city where superstition reigns with such despotic sway as in
Madrid, to seek for true devotion would be
a fruitless attempt. ... One half of Madrid was brought thither by
expecting to meet the other half. The only
persons truly anxious to hear the Preacher were a few antiquated
devotees, and half a dozen rival Orators,
determined to find fault with and ridicule the discourse. As to the
remainder of the Audience, the Sermon might
have been omitted altogether, certainly without their being
disappointed, and very probably without their
perceiving the omission. (6)
The narrator catalogues the spectators' despicable motives without condemning
them, expressing equal contempt for the naiveté
of the "antiquated devotees" and for the others assembled to gawk at
and solicit one another. He posits no moral alternative to
the "superstition" of Madrid; though the narrator is contemptuous of
the audience, he offers neither the possibility of reformation
nor any counterexample of virtue, except of course that of the vainglorious
and still-untested Ambrosio. The irreligious
audience's rapt response to Ambrosio's sermon might be viewed as a
concession on the narrator's part that they are still awed
by religion, and therefore redeemable. Their pleasure, however, is
described in sexually charged terms, suggesting that their
"delight" is not incited wholly by the "consoling words of the preacher".
(7) However pious the audience appears during
Ambrosio's sermon, they return to their former selves as soon as he
stops speaking. Lorenzo returns to courting Antonia and
Christoval to distracting Leonella with feigned attention. Their levity
has been so little disturbed that after the ladies depart
Christoval suggests that he and Lorenzo "adjourn to the Comedy". (8)
The attention to veils during the Cathedral scene allows Lewis to explore
the metaphorical and psychological exposures with
which the novel is preoccupied. Leonella forces her niece to remove
her veil at the request of the interesting interlocutors. In this
incident Leonella acts impetuously and in her own interest, hoping
to impress her potential conquests with her sophistication
rather than intending injury to Antonia. Antonia's reluctant "disrobing,"
however, prefigures other more violent and sinister forms
of coercive exposure in the novel which I will consider as forms of
satire, including the penultimate example of forcible unveiling,
Ambrosio's rape of Antonia:
"And where is the harm, I pray you?" interrupted
her Companion somewhat sharply; "Do not you see, that the
other Ladies have all laid their veils aside,
to do honour no doubt to the holy place in which we are? I have taken
off mine already; and surely if I expose my
features to general observation, you have no cause to put yourself in
such a wonderful alarm! Blessed Maria! Here
is a fuss and a bustle about a chit's face! Come, come, Child!
Uncover it; I warrant you that nobody will
run away with it from you." (9)
Antonia, like the devotees described in derisive terms by the narrator,
is unaware of the intentions these men may harbor, and
unprepared to assert herself in the rituals of courtship they are enacting
against her will. There is nothing beneath her veil, no
false motives underlying her actions, for Lewis to expose. She suffers
the fate of Lewis's corrupt and hypocritical characters,
though; she is exposed simply because she attempts to cover herself,
and covers are torn away in the process of dissection
performed by Lewis.
The satirist's traditional stance as a reformer with clearly defined
moral motives is also challenged by minor characters like
Baptiste, a bandit who poses as an hospitable woodcutter in order to
prey upon prosperous travelers. Fully initiated into vice
and pretending to virtue, Baptiste is a perfect character for Lewis
to dissect and expose as an impostor. Marguerite, Baptiste's
wife, appears rude and idle to her visitors; she proves otherwise by
risking her life to save theirs. Lewis strips away the multiple
layers of pretense each character exhibits during this bizarre episode,
exposing their presumptions, their disguises, their
weaknesses, and the motivations which underlie their actions. Marguerite,
the character who seemed most despicable at the
outset of the episode, is the only character who does not turn out
to be absurd or reprehensible. Even Raymond, one of the few
characters in Lewis's novel who might be described as a hero, is shown
to be vain and judgmental. The moral purpose of this
clever satiric turnabout is called into question by Baptiste. Baptiste,
like Lewis, is a skilled satirist. He disabuses Marguerite of
her romantic notions about her former husband and exposes her to the
viciousness and depravity surrounding her: "Baptiste ...
rejoiced in opening my eyes to the cruelties of his profession, and
strove to familiarise me with blood and slaughter". (10)
Baptiste dissects others neither to warn Marguerite about their disingenuousness
nor to encourage her to amend her own
behavior, but in order to sink her to his own level of iniquity.
Theodore, Raymond's scampish servant, also performs the role of satirist
from somewhat dishonorable motives. He disguises
himself as a beggar outside the convent in order to learn what happened
to Agnes. The scene has important consequences;
though a Papal Bull demanding that the prioress deliver Agnes to Raymond
does nothing but provoke her "rage " and "menace,"
Theodore learns that Agnes has been murdered. (11) Lewis does not focus
on the serious business of Theodore's visit, though.
The basket containing news of Agnes's fate seems to be thrust into
Theodore's hands as an afterthought. The episode is a satire
on the nuns and their pretended purity.
Theodore is the satirist, penetrating inside the sheltered convent,
probing the nuns' characters, and exposing their sensuality,
credulity, and vanity. Theodore's motives are apparently laudable.
Only the truth about Agnes's fate can save the languishing
Raymond by providing him with a definitive course of action. However,
Theodore's behavior while inside the convent seems
calculated to satirize the nuns as much as to discover Agnes's whereabouts.
It is necessary for him to "[feign] timidity" and to
"[flatter] the vanity of the nuns" in order to gain access to the convent.
(12) It seems excessive and sadistic, however, for him to
relate a lengthy series of ludicrous adventures. Theodore elicits ridiculous
responses from the nuns, including the porteress's
claim to have witnessed the "pea-green" inhabitants of Denmark he describes.
(13) This passage serves no possible reformative
purpose. Theodore simply indulges his appetite, and of course Lewis's,
for derision.
The satire displayed by minor characters in the preceding episodes prefigures
how the novel's climactic scenes--the riot incited
by Lorenzo and Ambrosio's rape of Antonia--will unfold. The central
narrative follows the satiric trajectory set out in miniature
in earlier episodes: inwards and penetrating. However, these later
episodes are increasingly violent. In earlier scenes, Lewis, via
his characters, interrogates, dissects, and exposes the objects of
his satire for pleasure. Ridicule is benign in both senses; it
doesn't reform but generally alters nothing for the worse. In the central
scenes, however, the violence of satire ceases to be
rhetorical. Bakhtin's comments about exposure as a mode of social interrogation
help explain the escalating carnage. Satire
continues to penetrate inwards until it has destroyed its object. The
satirist removes the cancer, but kills the patient in the
process.
Lorenzo, an aristocratic and heroic figure, publicly descries the convent's
antiquated and vindictive practices during the Festival
of St. Clare. His declaration incites a riot during which many of the
nuns, guilty as well as innocent, are killed, and which ends
only with the razing of the convent. Lorenzo justifies his rash actions
by claiming that he "only wished for an opportunity to free"
his countrymen from the "monkish fetters" of belief in a corrupt institution.
(14) Benevolence, however, is a tepid term to
describe Lorenzo's monomania. He is so consumed with his project that
it keeps him from dying, and once he accomplishes it
he believes it will leave him with "'nothing in the world deserving
his attention". (15) His passion to reveal the truth about the
practices which occur in the convent is likely motivated by his need
to "hear that Agnes was revenged," a desire more violent
than reformative. (16)
Lorenzo does not foresee and cannot control the way the crowd responds
to his verbal satire. Their righteous fury might be
described as Juvenalian, but they do not express it through a classical
satirist's balanced oratory. This collective group of
satirists acts rather than derides. They incite one another to violently
expose the corruption hidden behind the convent's sacred
walls:
The Populace besieged the Building with perservering
rage; they battered the walls, threw lighted torches in at the
windows, and swore that by break of day not
a Nun of St. Clare's order should be left alive.... The Rioters
poured into the interior part of the Building,
where they excercised their vengeance upon every thing which found
itself in their passage. (17)
The crowd acts sadistically, punishing both the innocent the guilty.
They force their way into the convent, penetrating inside the
walls which had previously signified the convent's inaccessibility
to the outside world. Their violent and forcible movement
inwards follows the trajectory of satire. They "dissect" the convent
in order to expose the corruption hidden inside it, but their
"incisions" are so deep and haphazard that they destroy it.
The climactic scene in the novel, Ambrosio's graphic rape of Antonia,
may be read as yet another manifestation of the satirist's
desire to violently expose the affectation of society and convention.
Satire often addresses itself to readers who, like Antonia,
possess the "inexpressible charm of Modesty" which "enthralls the heart
of Man". (18) Antonia is forcibly made cognizant of her
delusions concerning the sanctity of the church and the romantic ideals
she entertains, Even after Ambrosio attacks her in her
home, she conjures up excuses for his behavior. Her tenacious desire
to retain faith in social convention and religious ideals
makes her a poor reader of the satire being enacted on her very body.
The "violence" of Ambrosio's "lustful delirium" mirrors
the mob's frenzy when they force their way into the convent, and the
result is the same. (19) Ambrosio, heedless of the
consequences of his action, forces himself upon, or rather into, Antonia.
In this scene Lewis shows that satire, when effective,
does not reform. The benevolent motives expressed by the novel's verbal
satirists are generally pretense. The only successful
practitioners of satire act violently and forcibly, dismembering the
object of satire rather than simply exposing it.
Potent satire, Lewis suggests, is a destructive force, a disruptive
violation of an accepted, or at least understood, order.
Lorenzo's speech outside the Abbey, intended only to punish the guilty,
incites the mob's frenzied and indiscriminate violence,
leading to the massacre of many nuns ignorant of the unsavory activities
of their prioress and her followers. In Lewis's world,
satire contains the potential for the obliteration of corrupt institutions,
but not for their gradual reformation. The pretense of
didacticism covers the satirist's insatiable and irrational impulse
to destroy what lies before him. An effective satirist punishes
rather than purges his object, and that punishment is swift but rarely
just.
Notes
(1) Alok Bhalla, The Cartographers of Hell: Essays on the Gothic Novel
and the Social History of England . (India:
Sterling Publishers Private, 1991) 13. (back)
(2) Samuel Johnson, Lives of the English Poets, ed. George Birkbeck Hill, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1905) I, 447. (back)
(3) Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, ed. Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981) 23. (back)
(4) Alfred Habegger, Gender, Fantasy, and Realism in American Literature
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1982)
x. (back)
(5) Matthew Lewis, The Monk , ed. Howard Anderson (New York: Oxford
University Press) xx; hereafter abbreviate as The
Monk. (back)
(6) The Monk 7. (back)
(7) The Monk 19. (back)
(8) The Monk 25. (back)
(9) The Monk 11. (back)
(10) The Monk 124. (back)
(11) The Monk 220. (back)
(12) The Monk 284. (back)
(13) The Monk 287. (back)
(14) The Monk 345. (back)
(15) The Monk 344. (back)
(16) The Monk 344. (back)
(17) The Monk 357. (back)
(18) The Monk 243. (back)
(19) The Monk 383. (back)
Ann Campbell
Emory University
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