He achieved his aim, lost his hope of salvation, and was reborn as a malevolent and powerful being, able to move freely through space like a ghost until such a time when Hell should claim him.
In his thirst for knowledge, this ancestor, Melmoth, had studied the dark arts in order to learn more about the afterlife. The Spaniard, Monçada, then begins his tale, which includes many others, all of which centre upon the mysterious stranger, who turns out to be the student’s ancestor from centuries ago. In the night, a Spanish ship is wrecked against the rocks near the house of the student’s uncle, and the sole survivor is taken in by the student. A student, John Melmoth, travels to his uncle’s death-bed, and finds his uncle in fear of some mysterious stranger before he dies. The story begins in Ireland, and technically remains there until the end of the novel, as Maturin uses and over-uses the narrative device of characters telling stories within stories. For people who wish to read the novel without having the story spoiled, they may continue reading from the fifth paragraph.
This dark style pervades the convoluted plot, which I will relate, with special attention given to Faustian elements, in the following three paragraphs. Maturin’s novel sits between the two styles, combining desolate dungeons and storm-wracked graveyards with passages of intense paranoia and claustrophobia. At this time, Gothic novels had begun to shift from their original form of romances, which depended on dark and terrible settings, to a more psychological brand of horror, such as can be found in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Melmoth the Wanderer was written in 1820 by the Anglican priest Charles Maturin, twelve years after the publication of the first part of Goethe’s Faust.
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