Later in the novel, we learn that Manfred’s grandfather, Ricardo, obtained the principality of Otranto murderously, making Manfred himself illegitimate and Conrad’s death prophetic. Primarily, it develops the novel's integral theme that the sins of the father will be visited upon his children. As a symbol it has multiple applications. It is the helmet of the statue that falls on Conrad, killing the only heir to Manfred’s line. The Statue of Alfonso (Symbol)Īlfonso was the beneficent former Prince of Otranto, whose statue becomes symbolic of history, its ugly truths, and the inexorable justice it imposes on the present. Consequently, the party was in sudden tumult, and so the castle is more widely symbolic of the dissolution and instability of English politics at the time. To gain more sovereign power, King George “broke with the old Whig leadership” (Wikipedia, 2016) and granted power instead to his tutor Lord Bute. With the accession of George III to the throne in 1760, however – around the time that The Castle of Otranto was written – their power waned dramatically. The 18th century was a tumultuous time for English politics: early in the century, Walpole’s father was the leader of the prominent political party the Whigs (of which Walpole himself was a member), and during this time their power was such as the warrant the label of “Whig Oligarchy” (Holmes et al., 2014, p. The castle has wider significance, however. By choosing such a symbolic and ominous setting, Walpole prefigures the violence, upheaval and the supernatural tenor of his novel. With time, the minds of locals began to fill the ruins with ghosts, suggesting an uneasiness with the past and the bloody horrors it contained. With a Protestant victory, Catholic churches were defaced and left derelict as visual symbols of a defeated and decaying religion.
The eponymous castle of the story is dilapidated and crumbling from the opening pages, which is reminiscent of the ruined catholic churches and monasteries after the Protestant Reformation of 1688.
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