Where It All Goes Down
The Castle of Udolpho; 1580s Europe
Setting is where it's at in The Mysteries of Udolpho. Although Em moves around over miles of the French and Italian countryside and several chateaus, we've got to give some credit to the ultimate spooky castle: Udolpho in Italy. The year when our story starts is 1584, a time when the Grand Tour was in full swing.
That means it was super popular for aristocrats to go gallivanting around the countryside in search of some hoity-toity culture. Although Em gets some serious travel under her belt, you might say the real story is what happens when the Grand Tour goes terribly awry.
It's Super Sublime
Before Em makes her big move to Italy, she's jumpin' all over the place with her travel-bug dad, St. Aubert. And Em is loving it: she "cannot resist her transport" as she looks over the "majestic Garonne" (1.3.5). Most of the first volume is dedicated to these kinds of rapturous declarations about nature. And we'll give it to Em: it's pretty nice to get toted around in a carriage over the French countryside. We'd like to see how she lasts on a backpacking trip.
When Em starts going off on the beauty of nature, she's buying into the whole phenomenon of the "sublime." It's a pretty neat concept that goes all the way back to Longinus, writing in the 1st or 3rd century, but gets updated by Edmund Burke in 1756. Basically, it's a way to talk about the immeasurable greatness of art or nature.
U Been 2 Udolpho?
The real name of the game, Udolpho, doesn't even pop up until midway through the second volume. So what gives? Why name a book after a castle where Em just chills for a while before heading back home?
Well, everything is building up to this creepy castle of Montoni's. All of Em's exclamations about the sublimity of nature basically get squashed by the majesty of Udolpho:
Emily gazed with melancholy awe upon the castle… for, though it was now lighted up by the setting sun, the gothic greatness of its features, and its mouldering walls of dark grey stone, rendered it a gloomy and sublime object. (2.5.25)
Bam.
See, Em's been taking a tour of the countryside that's a little on the tame side. Back when she was traveling with her dad, she could stop the carriage any time and call it a day. At Udolpho, Em sees a wilder side of nature barely outside the castle walls. And even when she's totally terrified, she can't help but stop and reflect on how cool the place is:
She often paused to examine the gothic magnificence of Udolpho, its proud irregularity […] (2.6.15)
It's like a fantasy straight out of her romance novels finally came true.
Back to Chateau-le-Blanc
Even when Em leaves Udolpho for good, she's fated to arrive at yet another haunted house. She first glimpses Chateau-le-Blanc when she's searching for help for her ailing dad, though it's difficult to make out "in the faint moonlight" (1.6.38). But it's when she makes it back to the chateau after escaping from Udolpho that she really gets a sense of her new home.
Take a look at Blanche's first impression of Chateau-le-Blanc: as she draws near to the mansion for the first time, "the gothic features of this ancient mansion successively appeared" (3.10.10). Like Em, Blanche is bound and determined to see the romantic potential in any place she visits. The events that occur at the chateau—like Em glimpsing a "ghost" in the Marchioness's room—have a lot to do with the fact that the girls expect spooky things to happen there.