#Anne's parents didn't let her spend the night at Jane's house

[iamheretodomythingrip]

Fun fact: Jane is a huge Disney nerd, has been ever since she was a child, her brothers used to tease her about it, but now they mostly let her be.

She has a once per week Disney night with Kat (hardcore The owl house fan), and then they talk to Anne about it

[garden-beans]

I want what 20th century women authors were on

Ok but no literally I was reminded of my favorite (as of right now I am fickle) gothic novel. Which guys let me tell you about Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho. Have you ever wanted to read Jane Austen but like also the plot is on crack a bit? Yeah, I also didn't know I wanted that until I had it.

So like, maybe spoilers but the novel was also published in 1794 so I feel like its fine. I'm going to break the book's plot down into four, and i want emphasize this, very simplified sections.

Part One: Death. We start with the death of our main gal's (her name is Emily) parents, total bummer they were like a super nice family and now she has to go live in the wack castle with her aunt. Stuff does happen before her parents die but for the sake of not ranting too much the most important pre-parental-death facts to know is that the family's fortune was in decline, Emily accompanied her father travelling the world after her mom dies and while journeying she falls in love with this guy named Valancourt. But then her dad dies and it's aunt time. Oh also she meets a woman called Sister Agnes at the convent where her father gets buried, we will come back to her. Classic set up we love to see it nothing too big happening here. But this leads us to the next plot point the castle. You guessed it! It's Udolpho.

Part Two: Udolpho. Ok to be fair im skipping a bunch of stuff but we have to get through this, so straight up gothic castle on a cliff. I could go on a whole rant about the castle being a classic example of a large scary house in gothic novels and how arguably the main character could really be the castle and Emily is just our tour guide but I digress. Emily's Aunt has married this fuck ass guy named Signor Montoni, and he sucks so much ass. He forces Emily to break off her engagement with Valancourt (yeah that happened in the stuff i skipped) by manipulating her aunt. He also before they make it to Udolpho tries to force Emily to marry his creepy old man friend Count Morano and sign over her property to him (her uncle). But then switches up real fast when his friend turns out to be like loosing his money or smth and Montoni and her Aunt drag her off to Udolpho. Ok great they get there and turns out Montoni is like a bandit king/leader guy???? and the castle is their center of operations??? And then the castle is attacked by other people and Morano shows back up and tries to kidnap Emily but fails. Also castle is allegedly mad haunted. Emily finds a creepy black curtain and has a breakdown about a frightful thing she sees behind it, she thinks it is the body of Signora Laurentini di Udolpho who the Count was rumored to be married to before. Emily thinks he killed her and put her body there. Great. Montoni ends up inadvertently killing Emily's aunt cause she won't sign over her property to him and plans on leaving it to Emily, so he locks her in a tower and she just gets sick and dies there. Skipping some more stuff Emily and a few others run away and escape Udolpho which leads to....

Part Three: Chateau-Blanc. Yay! Second haunted house time! They end up nearby where her father died and was buried. Some supernatural shit is happening here too apparently and a servant shows Emily this room with a painting of the Marchioness de Villeroi and tells her about her. Emily is like aw fuck this lady might be my real mom we look crazy related and double fuck because this room is also seemingly very haunted. So another guy is like hey i'll spend the night in here to prove it isnt haunted! and the next day he is straight up gone so that sucks. Emily then ends up going back to the convent and visiting Sister Agnes who is dying now too. And death is a hell of a drug because she confesses her whole life story to Emily and turns out Agnes is Signora Laurentini di Udolpho and had been the Marquis de Villeroi's lover. And she and him conspired to kill the Marchioness de Villeroi who is Emily's aunt not her mom. And like men do the Marquis regretted what he did and blamed it all on Agnes/Signora Laurentini and told her she had to go repent for the rest of her life. And Oops Emily should have all her aunt's land and stuff actually so she is a wealthy woman now once she recovers it all. Also! that guy (Ludovico) who disappeared earlier in the haunted room shows back up! Turns out he was kidnapped by Pirates who were trying to rob the mansion, not ghosts.

Part Four: Final Weddings and Reveals. So the book ends with Emily and Blanche (another character she is important but... you get it)) getting married. Emily to Valancourt after a series of miscommunications I glossed over. Its like a whole romance subplot of 'is he worthy of her love? is he not?' going on during the last part up until they are like 'ooo we are in love lets marry'. Idk the romance isn't why i am here. I'm here because the very end of the novel reveals to us that this whole time the creepy maybe dead body Emily saw behind that curtain was a wax figure. And it like ribs on her for not taking a second more to look, hold on im pulling out the quote for this one “Had she dared to look again, her delusion and her fears would have vanished together, and she would have perceived, that the figure before her was not human, but formed of wax". Like damn ok yeah...

anyway I just really like this novel. Like! It's mentioned by Austen in Northanger Abbey, which is knowingly a parody or satire of the Gothic genre. And Udolpho is used as like this example of a great gothic story in it. But I feel like you could argue that Udolpho is almost a parody or satire in itself? Like Emily is never actually in any danger from supernatural happenings. The worst is her new uncle and some other creepy men. And while that also can fall into the gothic genre there is also this self awareness the story has of its own elaborate craziness. If that makes any sense? Idk it just throws so many plot twists and points at you in the best way.