Response 1

The “Castle of Otranto” was a interesting story. This piece of Gothic literature is special because it was one of the first text that introduced Gothic themes in a story. Some of these themes were the super natural, monks, and princesses. I feel this book really shows how things were back in those times to a certain extent. For example back then you can see that women really didn’t have a say in much they were basically only housewives and needed to listen to everything their father and husband said to do. An example showing this is when Isabella said “It is not ours to make election for ourselves: heaven, our fathers, and our husbands must decide for us.” She’s basically giving up on her right to make decisions and leaving it to the male of the family. I feel as if women should have a right to speak up and make decisions on their own if they want to, but adding this shows the vulnerability of women in the story which makes it scary in a sense knowing that they cant really do much, its like being locked with chains.  This story taught me that things in life can be so unexpected. I say this because the death of Conrad happened just before he was about to get married to Isabella, and that some terrible luck. another thing that can relate to this lessons is how Matilda died without ever getting to get her feelings out to the person she loved. Overall i enjoyed the story and was something new to the usual upbeat stories i’ve read.