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Operations of Gothic Terror in Four Passages from ​The Monk b​ y Matthew Lewis

Matthew Lewis, in his 1796 Gothic novel ​The Monk​, communicates how environment

incites terror, and how fear operates in the body. For Lewis, terror often resides in the

environment as opposed to the mind, and he engages the dichotomy between objects, the mind,

and the manifestations of terror using punctuation, diction, and Gothic archetypes to explore how

terror is induced. Examining Lewis’s treatments of terror reveals elements of externalist thought,

which explains the mind’s responses and actions as contingent on the physical environment.

Lewis also prescribes to the philosophy of epiphenomenalism, which is a branch of materialism,

considering only material matter as the root of all causes and effects. In epiphenomenalism,

physical and psychological experiences in the body are the cause of mental responses such as

sadness, fear, or terror.

The following passage exemplifies the main elements Lewis uses to create and portray

sublime terror:

…A plaintive tone, sounding at no great distance, at length reached his hearing; He bent his
course joyfully towards it. It became more audible as He advanced; and He soon beheld again
the spark of light, which a low projecting Wall had hitherto concealed from him.
It proceeded from a small Lamp which was placed upon an heap of stones, and whose
faint and melancholy rays served rather to point out, than dispell the horrors of a narrow gloomy
dungeon formed in one side of the Cavern; It also showed several other recesses of similar
construction, but whose depth was buried in obscurity. Coldly played the light upon the damp
walls, whose dew-stained surface gave back a feeble reflection. A thick and pestilential fog
clouded the height of the vaulted dungeon. As Lorenzo advanced, He felt a piercing chillness
spread itself through his veins. The frequent groans still engaged him to move forwards. He
turned towards them, and by the Lamp’s glimmering beams beheld in a corner of this loathsome
abode, a Creature stretched upon a bed of straw, so wretched, so emaciated, so pale, that He
doubted to think her Woman. She was half-naked: Her long dishevelled hair fell in disorder over
her face, and almost entirely concealed it. One wasted Arm hung listlessly upon a tattered rug,
which covered her convulsed and shivering limbs: The Other was wrapped round a small bundle,
and held it closely to her bosom. A large Rosary lay near her: Opposite to her was a Crucifix, on
which She bent her sunk eyes fixedly, and by her side stood a Basket and a small Earthen
Pitcher.
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Lorenzo stopped: He was petrified with horror. He gazed upon the miserable Object with
disgust and pity. He trembled at the spectacle; He grew sick at heart: His strength failed him, and
his limbs were unable to support his weight. He was obliged to lean against the low Wall which
was near him, unable to go forward, or to address the Sufferer. She cast her eyes towards the
Stair-case: The Wall concealed Lorenzo, and She observed him not. (Lewis 368-69)

As Lorenzo approaches Agnes, the Sufferer, she is at first concealed from him, and Lewis

uses punctuation to set and execute the dramatic motion of the passage as she is revealed to him

in her terrible state. The first paragraph of the passage consists of two sentences, both broken in

the middle by semicolons; as Lorenzo bends “his course joyfully” to the “plaintive tone” he

hears, the symmetrical sentence structure reflects his balanced state. The rhythm the punctuation

creates reads like the rhythm of Lorenzo’s purposeful footsteps. In the first sentence, Lorenzo

perceives a stimulus, sound, at the beginning of the sentence and goes towards it on the other

side of the semicolon; in the second sentence, Lorenzo follows the sound at beginning of the

sentence and is rewarded by another stimulus, light, at the end of the sentence. This

beginning-and-end sandwich of physical stimuli guiding Lorenzo forward in the two sentences

symmetrically split by semicolons carries the reader through the story while lulling the mind into

a sense of security, setting expectations for a simple, structured revelation at the end of

Lorenzo’s adventure.

In the second and third paragraphs of the passage, semicolons and colons shift from

creating an even reading experience to functioning to propel the reader forward as Lorenzo is

propelled forward to his horrifying encounter with Agnes. Lewis uses semicolons to expound

upon his description of the horrors of environment and colons to showcase the increasing horror

of the scene. He uses a semicolon to promote atmosphere in the sentence where “a narrow

dungeon formed in one side of the Cavern; It also showed several other recesses of similar
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construction.” This semicolon serves to break the description into two parts, emphasizing the

unknowable vastness of the caverns Lorenzo has just entered, causing a pause after “one side of

the Cavern” before moving on to the “other recesses.” As the passage moves on, Lewis

frequents the use of colons. Lorenzo beholds Agnes “half-naked: Her long dishevelled hair fell in

disorder over her face, and almost entirely concealed it.” At the beginning of the next paragraph,

“Lorenzo stopped: He was petrified with horror.” These colons serve to thrust the reader into

further details of the scene; rather than ending with details such as Agnes’s half-nudity or

Lorenzo stopping, Lewis juxtaposes the balanced semicolon structure in the first paragraph of the

passage with increasing use of colons for suspense, inciting the reader to read on as Lorenzo

beholds Agnes.

Lewis also frequently uses commas to create small pauses of suspense, such as when

Lorenzo turns towards Agnes’s groans “and by the Lamp’s glimmering beams beheld in a corner

of this loathsome abode, a Creature stretched upon a bed of straw, so wretched, so emaciated, so

pale, that he doubted to think her Woman.” Here, the comma splitting the images of “this

loathsome abode” and “a Creature stretched” creates a moment of tension, a pause in the reading

to reflect on the horror of scenery before plunging into the horror of Agnes’s current state. The

punctuation within the text allows the reader to experience the events of the passage in a

real-time effect with Lorenzo, pausing as he pauses, and beholding what he sees at the very

moment terror seizes him. A sentence near the end of the passage reads, “He trembled at the

spectacle; He grew sick at heart: His strength failed him, and his limbs were unable to support

his weight.” Lewis’s mesh of punctuation before the period at an apex sentence of terror in this

passage creates a staggered experience as Lorenzo is trembling at what he sees; there are no
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more symmetrically punctuated sentences but a lopsided arrangement of semicolons, colons, and

commas as Lorenzo almost faints with fright.

Lewis’s diction serves to further explore how terror operates on the body and promotes

the Gothic archetypes used in the novel. His use of verbs to personify objects make them more

terrifying and explores materialist theories of terror and epiphenomenalism. At the beginning of

the passage, the plaintive tone “reached” Lorenzo, causing him to pursue it. The light “coldly

played” upon the damp wall, whose surface “gave back” a feeble reflection. Lewis’s choice of

action verbs provides a sense of agency to Lorenzo’s surrounding environment, causing an

unsettling sense of multiple presences within the text, as if the environment is a separate cast of

characters who are watching Lorenzo proceed through the story. The melancholy rays of the

lamp “served rather to point out, than dispell the horrors of narrow gloomy dungeon,”

illuminating how environment serves to influence states of terror; the objects around Lorenzo

only further agitate him to the point where even light is not a comfort but a catalyst for terror.

As Lorenzo advances into the cavern, he feels “a piercing chillness spread itself through

his veins.” The chillness, a sensation associated with high states of fear, serves as the noun

proceeding the pronoun “itself,” acting with an agency outside of Lorenzo’s will, yet operating

directly on Lorenzo, spreading itself like malignant blood cells through his veins to elevate his

state of being. It is after the chillness runs through his body that he beholds the terrible sight of

Agnes; unable to deal with what he is seeing, “his strength failed him, and his limbs were unable

to support his weight.” Lewis shows terror as being most visceral in the body as opposed to in

the mind; Lewis continues to use precise verbs on inanimate things as Lorenzo’s “strength” itself

“failed” him. This promotes an epiphenomenal idea that terror operates in the processes of the
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body and not in the mental experience; Lewis’s diction shows Lorenzo’s body as what is reacting

to the stimuli around it and robbing him of personal agency. In addition, Lewis gives no allusion

or mention of Lorenzo’s mental state in this passage, only description of the environment and the

physical manifestations of terror. ​The Monk​ is a text primarily concerned with moral degradation

and states of excess passion, and it is interesting that Lewis chooses to subtly invoke materialistic

philosophies in this passage to suggest Lorenzo is not operating but being operated on by terror,

a state of the sublime. The sense of Gothic horror comes directly from the surrounding scenery

and external events and not from any addressed psychological principles of fear, and the reader’s

horror comes from experiencing the situation in time with Lorenzo through precise punctuation

and diction. Lewis’s underlying ideas appeal to the dichotomy between the mind’s will over the

body and the body’s own physicality, promoting that Lorenzo’s mind is not in control of his

physical state.

Lewis’s diction also communicates the archetypical Gothic environment of a

subterraneous cavern and sublime elements of terror. The light is “melancholy” and within the

cavern “also showed several other recesses of similar construction, but whose depth was buried

in obscurity.” The sublime archetype of imperfect light, largeness, and obscurity are fully alluded

to as the reader is unable to grasp the full enormity of the scene’s setting. A “thick and

pestilential fog clouded the height of the vaulted dungeon,” introducing not only the Gothic

element of vaulted places, but concealing the true height of the space Lorenzo is exploring in

“pestilential fog” so thick it shrouds his surroundings from him. The use of the word “clouded”

provides the sense of atmosphere that aids to conceal Agnes from Lorenzo, invoking the Gothic

archetype of the veil as a source of terror. While at first Lorenzo bends his course “joyfully”
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toward the sound of Agnes, as soon as he experiences the environment of unknowable size and

sickly fog, his body experiences chillness “spread itself” through his veins and eventually

becomes overwhelmed with fear.

Lewis explores how the Gothic landscape and the external stimuli and objects of

environment operate to terrify. As Lorenzo advances into the cavern and the tormented and

unrecognizable form of Agnes is revealed, he loses agency to sublime terror.

In another passage, Lewis raises questions of cognition and environment and

demonstrates how environment “authorizes” terror, as well as uses punctuation to further the

scene’s sense of horror:

…[Antonia] was often susceptible of terrors, which when She discovered their natural and
insignificant causes made her blush at her own weakness. With such a turn in mind, the
adventure which She had just been reading, sufficed to give her apprehensions the alarm. The
hour and the scene combined to authorize them. It was the dead of night: She was alone, and in
the chamber once occupied by her deceased Mother. The weather was comfortless and stormy:
The wind howled around the House, the doors rattled in their frames, and the heavy rain pattered
against the windows. No other sound was heard. The Taper, now burnt down to the socket,
sometimes flaring upwards shot a gleam of light through the room, then sinking again seemed
upon the point of expiring. Antonia’s heart throbbed with agitation: Her eyes wandered fearfully
over the objects around her, as the trembling flame illuminated them at intervals. She attempted
to rise from her seat; But her limbs trembled so violently, that She was unable to proceed. She
then called Flora, who was in a room at no great distance: But agitation choaked her voice, and
her cries died away in hollow murmurs (Lewis 316-217).

While Antonia’s mind is agitated from what she has just been reading, it is the “hour and

the scene” that “authorize” her alarmed apprehensions. Unlike the passage with Lorenzo, this

passage does describe a state of mind but clearly depicts Antonia’s mental faculties as being

overcome by her environment. Her “apprehensions,” or “anticipation” and “dread” (OED), are

sufficiently alarmed by the text she has just been reading. Lewis gives direct agency to the

combination of “the hour and the scene” by making it the subject of the verb “authorize,” clearly
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stating that Antonia’s environment is acting upon her with outside force, instilling terror into her

mental state. Also, by using a word such as “authorize,” which has legal connotations, Lewis

suggests that environment and the time of day has a position of authority over Antonia’s mental

state; this provides a sense that Antonia physically cannot escape the terror of environment

because it is in a place of power over her, furthering the horror of the situation by trapping

Antonia’s mind within her body. Lewis presents Gothic terror as the result of Antonia’s mind

being overwhelmed by her physical surroundings and characterizes the sublime event of

Antonia’s mind being overwhelmed as an inevitable product of the combination of the time of

day and the scene.

Lewis uses his characteristic punctuation and sentence structure in this passage to portray

the time and scene that authorizes Antonia’s terror for the reader. He continually uses colons as a

means to expound upon the terror of the situation, as he does in the passage with Lorenzo and

Agnes. Sentences such as, “It was the dead of night: She was alone,” “Antonia’s heart throbbed

with agitation: Her eyes wandered fearfully over the objects around her,” and “She then called

Flora, who was in a room at no great distance: But agitation choaked her voice,” demonstrate

how Lewis structures his sentences to contain another horrifying detail of the scene after each

colon. Not only is it the dead of night: Antonia is alone, raising the suspense of the moment as

Antonia’s isolation is brought to attention. Antonia’s heart isn’t only throbbing with agitation:

Her eyes are wandering over the objects around her. By using this sentence construction with

colons repeatedly throughout this scene and the entire novel, Lewis creates a sense of

expectation with each colon; whenever the reader encounters one in the text, it signals something

worse is going to follow. The colon acts as a physical representation of the terror Lewis’s
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characters are feeling, allowing the reader to experience the sublime state of the situation as it

unfolds for the characters.

Lewis’s use of diction in the scene furthers an epiphenomenonalist reading of the text.

Antonia’s environment is given agency through verbs. No other sounds are heard by Antonia

than the wind howling and the doors rattling; Lewis uses direct verbs such as “howl” and “rattle”

after “wind” and “doors” to suggest that they are operating with agency, making them outside

characters similar to how environment functioned in the passage with Lorenzo. Antonia’s heart

“throbbed with agitation,” she attempts to rise from her seat but “her limbs trembled so violently,

she was unable to proceed,” and as he called out to Flora “agitation choaked her voice, and her

cries died way in hollow murmurs.” In these examples, Lewis shows terror manifest in parts of

Antonia’s body such as her heart, her limbs, and her throat, and not in her state of mind. Lewis’s

diction ascribes agency to specific parts of Antonia’s body, supporting the idea that Lewis

subscribes Gothic terror to an externalist philosophy where environment and objects, as opposed

to psychology, author fear. Combined with the inescapable agency of an environment that

“authorizes” Antonia’s terror, her own body is reacting to the situation in ways that rob her mind

of agency, making her helpless for the moment of sublime terror. In the context of the passage,

Antonia’s terror at this moment comes from no real danger besides what reading infers on her

mind and “the hour and the scene” combine to produce, illustrating that physical danger does not

have to be present in the environment for the body to be excited into a sublime state of terror,

such is the visceral power of the body’s reaction to the perceived stimuli around it.

In addition, the Gothic archetypes of faltering light and the veil combine to authorize

terror. Lewis describes the flickering flame of the Taper in detail, and Antonia’s “eyes wandered
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fearfully over the objects around her, as the trembling flame illuminated them at intervals.” This

Gothic visual supplies suspense by using light to gradually and incompletely reveal the objects

that are potentially terrifying to Antonia. Something terrifying may be hidden in the dark, as

Antonia’s agitated physical state is telling her, and the faltering light at intervals could, at any

moment, reveal that terror in full; regardless of whether a source of danger or malice is present,

the Taper’s incomplete illumination of Antonia’s surroundings furthers her body into excess

emotion until her limbs tremble so violently she cannot rise from her seat. Even her heart

“throbbed” with agitation, mimicking the throbbing light of the Taper; Lewis’s diction, using the

verb “throb,” which is to pulsate, similar to how the flickering flame is described as pulsating,

portrays the environment’s effect on Antonia is so strong that even her body starts to mirror the

activities of her surroundings.

In the next passage, Lewis presents Don Raymond narrating an experience of sublime

terror:

That repose I wooed in vain. The agitation of my bosom chased away sleep. Restless in my
mind, in spite of the fatigue of my body I continued to toss about from side to side, till the Clock
in a neighboring Steeple struck ‘One.’ As I listened to the mournful hollow sound, and heard it
die away in the wind, I felt a sudden chillness spread itself over my body. I shuddered without
knowing wherefore; Cold dews poured down my forehead and my hair stood bristling with
alarm. Suddenly I heard slow and heavy steps ascending the stair-case. By an involuntary
movement I started up in my bed, and drew back the curtain. A single rush-light, which
glimmered upon the hearth shed a faint gleam through the apartment, which was hung with
tapestry. The door was thrown open with violence. A figure entered, and drew near my Bed with
solemn measured steps. With trembling apprehension I examined this midnight Visitor. God
Almighty! It was the Bleeding Nun! (Lewis 158-159).

This passage is particularly interesting because it presents descriptions of terror in a

first-person narrative, but Lewis’s use of diction, environment, and Gothic archetypes still

present terror as operating mainly in Don Raymond’s environment and body as opposed to his
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mind. Don Raymond describes his state as, “Restless in my mind, in spite of the fatigue of my

body,” establishing that the mind and the body are operating separately. In the current moment

the restlessness of the mind overpowers the fatigue of the body, and Don Raymond is, at least in

some part, aware of the dichotomy; however, after Don Raymond perceives the stimulus of the

nearby clock striking One, he says, “I felt a sudden piercing chillness spread itself over my

body.” This sentence almost exactly parallels Lorenzo’s feelings when approaching Agnes

(Lewis 369), introducing the distinct elements of epiphenomenalism into Don Raymond’s

experiences that are addressed in the passage pertaining to Lorenzo. In this case, however, we

hear Don Raymond’s first-person account of terror manifesting itself in his body. He says, “I

shuddered without knowing wherefore; Cold dews poured down my forehead, and my hair stood

bristling with alarm.” Don Raymond is aware his body is acting separately from his mind but is

unable to stop the manifestations of terror. He further describes his state, “By an involuntary

movement I started up in my bed and drew back the curtain.” Lewis’s diction here choosing the

word “involuntary” not only accentuates Don Raymond’s loss of mental agency, but

incorporating that word into Don Raymond’s narrative reveals that he himself is aware that the

responses of his body are not governing his mental state but are what is authoring it. Lewis raises

an interesting possibility of cognition and externalism where the mind is aware of the body’s

separate activities but is confined to its own non-agency by sublime terror. In all three of these

passages, Lewis characterizes Gothic terror as having a source in the body that overwhelms the

mind to a point where it is trapped by the operations of the physical state.

In the fourth passage, Ambrosio, the main antagonist of ​The Monk,​ experiences sublime

moral terror:
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As the few beams of day, which pierced through the bars of his prison-window, gradually
disappeared, and their place was supplied by the pale and glimmering Lamp, [Ambrosio] felt his
terrors redouble, and his ideas became more gloomy, more solemn, more despondent. He
dreaded the approach of sleep: No sooner did his eyes close, wearied with tears and watching,
than the dreadful visions seemed to be realised, on which his mind had dwelt during the day. He
found himself in sulphurous realms and burning Caverns, surrounded by Fiends appointed his
Tormentors, and who drove him through a variety of tortures, each of which was more dreadful
than the former (Lewis 426-427).

Ambrosio’s state of excess terror is triggered by the stimuli of daylight being replaced by

“the pale and glimmering Lamp.” This passage occurs near the end of ​The Monk,​ and it is fitting

that such a common Gothic archetype of terror seen throughout Lewis’s novel is portrayed here

as strong enough to unravel Ambrosio’s whole state of being, a testament to the sublime power

of light in Gothic environments. Lewis’s diction and sentence structure again robs the mind of

agency and places terror in the operations of the body. Following the comma after the Lamp,

“Ambrosio felt his terrors redouble, and his ideas became more gloomy.” No sense of agency is

given to Ambrosio’s mental state, but rather he is overcome with feeling terror as his ideas

“become” more gloomy; the verb “become” applies directly to Ambrosio’s ideas, triggered by

the physical stimuli of light outside of Ambrosio’s mental operation. Another dimension is added

to Ambrosio’s moral terror as he closes his eyes and his “dreadful visions seemed to be realised”

and he “found himself in sulphurous realms.” Lewis depicts Ambrosio as having lost even the

agency of his physical state. His agitation is so forceful that it tricks the body into tricking the

mind into feeling physically present in the sulphurous realms of hell, being driven “through a

variety of tortures.” Lewis portrays a powerful image of sublime terror so strongly manifested in

the body that it transports Ambrosio, body and mind, to a place where physical and mental horror

and pain seems to be actualized, even if it is only excess imagination responding to dim

lamplight.
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Through these four passages, Lewis portrays four different characters losing agency to

sublime terror through environment. He places the emphasis of externalism on sources of Gothic

terror through sentence structure, punctuation, diction, and Gothic archetypes, giving increased

agency to objects as the mind’s agency decreases, exploring the dichotomy between mind and

body.
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Works Cited

Lewis, Matthew. ​The Monk.​ Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1998. Print.