finished with the castle of otranto

I've been finished with The Castle of Otranto for awhile, but I've been lazy and not blogged about it. :)
So, I did really enjoy the novel and it more than met my expectations. I admit that I was expecting it to be a bit dull since it is such an old book, but I did like how it was written. Like I've said before though, the dialogue was a bit annoying to read because it was mixed in with the paragraphs.

My favorite part of the novel had to be the different characters. They were all so different with their own traits that made them really interesting. I even felt sorry for the "villain" of the novel at some points (which, I remember, is called a "grotesque"). My least favorite part, though, was probably all the supernatural occurrences, just because they were so "out there" (like a giant in the castle).

In my research of the book and the author for my research paper, I've found that Horace Walpole actually wrote another gothic novel (though less popular than his first) that is called The Mysterious Women, which I am excited to read and see if it's anything like The Castle of Otranto :)

The Castle of Otranto-5

Even though I'm not sure if I like Manfred, I'm positive that I like both his daughter, Matilda and the peasant and minister's son, Theodore. A ton of events take place in such a short book, so it's kind of hard to stop reading, but I'm at the end of the third chapter, which seems like a good stopping place.

Now, the reason I like Matilda is because she is nothing like her father. While her father and all his men have gone to search for the fleeing Isabella, she goes to the room where Theodore is locked in and lets him escape and gives him a sword and armor and tells him where to flee to. So, Matilda is incredibly different from Manfred.

Theodore was at first kind of annoying because of how he talked to and helped the Princess Isabella and then Matilda, but he is a very heroic character. After fleeing the castle, he finds Isabella hiding. He then comes across the strange knight that showed up at Otranto, who is also looking for Isabella. Theodore and the knight get into a fight, the knight gets seriously injured, then begs Isabella to come talk to him before he dies.

I stopped reading right when Isabella finds out that the knight is actually her father...:D This is a really good book and I can't wait to find out what happens...I might just have to stay up late to finish it :P

The Castle of Otranto-4

So, I've decided that I'm not sure if I like Manfred or not :) At the beginning he seemed like a pretty normal character, who was upset about his son dying...but then he wanted to marry Isabella, which made me not like him.

Now, however, I'm not sure. A lot has happened since Isabella escaped to the church to hide. The minister showed up to talk to Manfred about Isabella, then finds out that the peasant that helped her escape is actually his son that he had thought had died (which is the reason he joined the church). So, Manfred says that he will kill the minister's son if he doesn't return Isabella to the castle.

But then something else strange happens (which is totally not surprising at the point because this book is incredibly weird...) Some strange knight shows up at the castle saying that he is taking Isabella back to her parents and that he will take his rightful place as Prince of Otranto. So, I kind of feel bad for Manfred at this point because nothing seems to be going right for him...

And this is where I stopped reading because I felt like blogging about Manfred :D but now I'm going to go read some more...by the way, as annoying as the diaglogue is in the book, it is a really fast paced read...like something is always going on that keeps you interested, which is really cool :D yeah...