I often say that the core concept at the heart of the Gothic is the idea of the past haunting the present. One common way that this manifests in stories is through an old prophecy or curse. Prophecies serve to explain how the story’s current action is rooted in some event of the past. In many cases, the prophecy addresses a past wrong and how it might be revenged or righted. Generally, some injustice was committed by a member of a previous generation, and now the perpetrator’s descendants suffer the consequences, recalling the biblical notion that “the sins of the father shall be visited upon the children.” The prophecy can come from a divine source, or can be intentionally inflicted as a curse by a character associated with witchcraft. Prophecies may or may not be paired with other supernatural elements, such as literal hauntings by ghosts, revenants, or doppelgangers.
A prophecy lies at the center of the very first Gothic novel, which established the genre, The Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole. The story opens with the impending wedding of the heroine Isabella to Conrad, the son of Manfred, prince of Otranto. Manfred is eager to see his son married, because he hopes to put off an ancient and cryptic prophecy, which declared that “the castle and lordship of Otranto should pass from the present family, whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it.” Tragically, Conrad is killed before the wedding by a mysterious giant helmet that falls from the sky—the first sign that something “too large” has come to the castle. Yet another prophecy is revealed later in the story, after Isabella’s father arrives with a gigantic sword. Engraved upon the sword is a verse suggesting that the ghost of Alfonso—an earlier prince of Otranto—will remain restless and Isabella will be in danger until an heir of Alfonso’s blood can be found. By the end of the story, it is revealed that Manfred is a usurper, his grandfather having murdered Alfonso and forged his will to take over the castle. Alfonso’s spirit, super-sized and clad in armor, has been tormenting Manfred in revenge for the wrong done by his grandfather. Manfred ultimately confesses to these wrongs and gives up his throne to Alfonso’s descendant, Theodore. The prophecy in The Castle of Otranto is divine in nature, having originally be issued by Saint Nicholas, who had allied himself to Alfonso’s cause. The fulfillment of the prophecy brings both Manfred’s continued wrongdoings and the distressing supernatural occurrences to a close.
Almost a full century later, we can see a continuation of this trope in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s famous novel, The House of the Seven Gables, (1850). As in The Castle of Otrano, Hawthorne’s novel features a prophecy, or more accurately a curse, addressing wrongfully acquired property. In the opening pages, the reader learns that the eponymous House of the Seven Gables was built on land that originally belonged to Matthew Maule. The devious Colonel Pyncheon accused Maule of witchcraft and used opportunity to seize his property. At his execution, however, Maule looked at Colonel Pyncheon and pronounced an ominous prediction: “God will give him blood to drink!” Sure enough, on the day of his house-warming in his newly built estate, the colonel is found dead, with blood saturating his beard and staining his ruff. Later in the story, a Pyncheon descendant suffers another mysterious death—suggesting that Matthew Maule’s curse on Colonel Pyncheon continues through the generations. At the end of the novel, young Phoebe Pyncheon agrees to marry a young man named Holgrave, who turns out to be a descendent of Matthew Maule. Thus, the feuding families are united, the property is restored to its rightful owner’s descendant, and the curse is presumably broken.
Hawthorne’s novel leaves intentionally leaves it ambiguous as to whether the troubles plaguing the Pyncheon family were due to divine retribution, the curse of an actual witch, or merely a natural congenital disease. Other Gothic tales, however, depict curses and prophecies as overtly supernatural occurrences. One such tale is “The Poor Clare” (1856), a short story by the prolific Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell. Much like the two novels above, “The Poor Clare” begins with a description of the building that serves as the story’s main setting and the history of the family that lives there. In this case, an old lady named Bridget FitzGerald lives alone in a cottage on the estate of the old Starkey Manor-house, where she used to work as the family’s nurse. One day, a hunter named Mr. Gisborne shoots Bridget’s beloved dog for sport. In her grief, she lays an elaborate curse on him, saying, “You shall live to see the creature you love best, and who alone loves you … become a terror and a loathing to all, for this blood’s sake.” Little does Bridget know that this Mr. Gisborne is the foreign military officer that her daughter married after leaving home long ago. Bridget’s curse falls on her own granddaughter—the creature Gisborne loved best—who is now haunted by an evil doppelganger that turns everyone against her. Bridget’s curse gains ironic significance in that she inadvertently is punishing Gisborne not only for the recent killing of her dog but also for his earlier sin of stealing her daughter away. When Bridget learns that she has made her own descendant suffer, she is immediately remorseful—but curses are harder to undo than to create. Ultimately, Bridget must exchange her witchcraft for piety by becoming a nun, make up for the harm to Gisborne by caring for him on the battlefield, and sacrifice her own life before the curse is finally lifted.
What other examples of curses and prophecies in Gothic literature have you come across in your reading? What other tropes would you like to see me cover? Let me know in the comments! And if you’d like to read more about Gothic tropes, you can click on “Tropes” under the categories listed in the left-hand menu.