Passionate Emotions of Radcliffe's Male Characters

Radcliffe represents her characters’ emotions as determinate of their coinciding actions, especially when male characters are involved. At the beginning of the novel La Motte is described as an emotionally driven person (as opposed to someone of rationale), insofar as “his conduct was suggested by feeling, rather than principle … a man whose passions often overcome his reason” (Radcliffe 2). The quotation suggests that La Motte (and possibly the other men in the novel) are mostly driven by their passions and feelings rather than reason and principle. When Adeline rejects her father’s request to become a nun, her father is driven by anger and violence rather than reason to send his daughter to her (probable) death. 

In contrast, La Motte is seen by Adeline as her salvation, but still as a character driven by emotion. At the beginning of the novel La Motte is affected by Adeline’s grief and beauty as “She sunk at his feet, and with supplicating eyes, that streamed with tears, implored him to have pity on her.… he found it impossible to contemplate the beauty and distress of the object before him” (Radcliffe 5). His feeling and sentiments toward ‘beauty in distress’ overcome his reason; he takes in Adeline without thinking of the consequences. However, later in the novel La Motte’s feelings overcome his sense of principle rather than his reason, and he deceives Adeline with the Marquis to serve his own advantage and sense of security. La Motte (fearing imprisonment) is overcome by his ‘passions’ of self-preservation and in turn Adeline is betrayed a second time by the character who is supposed to be her protector and security. Both father figures in the novel are portrayed as suppressors; dangerous, irrational figures rather than a protector and a source of security. Adeline’s innocent trust in two male figures that both fail her places her in a role of the naive damsel, and although the two men succumb to their passions in different ways, they both end up betraying their duties and principles in favor or ‘fits of passion’. 

Moreover, the Marquis is thought (at first glance) to be a very noble and mature noble man of status; typically someone seen as proper, rational, and moral. At a second look we see that he is also driven by his passions... for Adeline. Reason does not seem to be a consideration when the Marquis declares his feelings for Adeline, namely when “the Marquis threw himself at her feet, and seizing her hand, impressed it with kisses” (Radcliffe 122). This scene is totally unexpected based on the description of the Marquis, and in many ways reflects the expected actions of an ‘unreasonable’ female affectation.

The idea that men, and not just women, can be driven by their emotions and passions must have been a relatively shocking idea up until the Romantic period. Radcliffe succeeded in portraying men and women in an equally unflattering light, while lifting the female heroine to a position of higher influence within the novel. This flip of stereotypical gender roles helps add a layer of the unexpected to the novel.