The Monk Character Analysis

In the novel The Monk, written by Matthew Lewis, nearly all the protagonists are young people. It is therefore possible to see quite easily the significance of their upbringing and education on their behaviour and their destiny. It differs depending upon if they have been raised into the world or not, and according to their gender as well as their place in the social hierarchy of their time. Most of the times, their upbringing and education are assumed by the same person, like this is the case for Antonia, but sometimes different people have to take it on. For example, Theodore, although it was his mother who took care of his upbringing in the forest with the Banditti, was mainly educated by Don Raymond afterwards. But here, we will focus on

'4 We can also argue that her environment – an old and remote castle in Murcia, without a father, brother, or society of any kind – did not help her to overcome her childish beliefs and fears. This leads her to mingle reality with fancies : she sees her mother 's ghost after reading the story of 'Alonzo the Brave and Fair Imogine '5. Her mind, used to all the gothic fictions she has been allowed to read – a genre which was however not exactly approved by the whole society at that time – in addition to the time and setting – 'It was the dead of the night : she was alone, and in the chamber once occupied by her deceased mother ' – drive her to see her mother as a ghost warning her. This part is one of the most uncertain of the book, because Lewis is here challenging the supernatural so that we do not know whether this vision is issued from Antonia 's imagination or is actual. Nevertheless, Antonia appears to be

Raised by monks in an abbey, he never had a proper family upbringing, not even an incomplete one like Antonia 's. But like her, he was reared away from the world. The only life he lived was a monastic life, and he never ever left the abbey before Elvira 's disease and his resolution to possess Antonia. This may appear like a contradiction since at the beginning of the book he praises that 'Man was born for society ' (Lewis, p. 53), but as he never knew anything else but life among religious people, he thinks that this is enough to bring up a child. About this hermetic life, one might argue that it is Ambrosio 's 'incarceration in the monastery [that taught] him progressively to devalue other lives '7. Lewis even specifies to us that 'have his youth been passed in the world, he would have shown himself possessed of many brilliant and manly qualities '8, but unfortunately, spending his childhood with monks has made him the wicked man that we know, because 'while the monks were busied in rooting out his virtues, and narrowing his sentiments, they allowed every vice which had fallen to his share, to arrive at full perfection. '9 With this, no wonder that the devil had a bet on him, and that an intervention of a woman like Matilda sufficed to make him embrace sins. A critic even asserted that 'the demonic forces which take hold of him in the course of the novel and lead him from sexual transgression to rape to