Harry Potter and The Castle o f Otranto
67
Hogwarts, like Otranto and Udolpho before it, serves as the heart of the
narrative and, like other Gothic castles before it, Hogwarts acts as an
important character throughout the series.
Before proceeding to an in-depth reading of Hogwarts as Gothic
castle, I would first like to establish what exactly the architectural
structure referred to as a Gothic castle is. Though the Gothic novel has
received increased critical attention in recent years, there remains a
dearth of information about what exactly a Gothic castle is and how it
works. Frances A. Chiu, in one of the few pieces to tackle the subject,
contends that the Gothic castles of the late eighteenth century were put in
place by a group of writers who used them as, “architectural metaphor of
state polity to be preserved or abandoned” (Chiu), while Maggie Kilgour
rightly observes that the Gothic castle has been interpreted as “a symbol
of both patriarchal power and the maternal body” (Kilgour 120). Though
these readings are valid, they do not provide a definition of what a
Gothic castle, as a physical structure and a character, is and how it
works. To begin my own explanation, I would first like to draw a
distinction between Walpolian castles, or those that follow the lead of
Horace Walpole and contain supernatural elements, and Radcliffean
castles, or those that follow the lead of Ann Radcliffe’s “explained
supernatural,”^ which do not. Though Hogwarts falls far more into the
former category than the latter—it is after all, the home of a magical and
supernatural school—^the extent to which Hogwarts draws from the
Radcliffean tradition should not be ignored. To begin with a short
definition which I will expand upon below: Gothic castles are labyrinth
like structures which contain secrets of a fragmented past, are
unknowable and, perhaps most importantly to the Walpolian tradition,
take sides. They are, without a doubt, characters in Gothic novels, every
bit as important as the hero, heroine, or villain. This paper will
demonstrate that not only does Hogwarts fit this definition of the Gothic
castle of the eighteenth-century, but that it does so in subtle ways that
indicate an engagement with Gothic castles that proves crucial to the
narrative of the series.
To expand upon the definition above, labyrinths are essential to a
Gothic castle, whether Walpolian or Radcliffean, and Hogwarts proves
no exception. Walpole’s Otranto castle, complete with trapdoors and
vaults that lead to underground passageways (Walpole 85), is the first
Gothic castle and establishes many of its tropes. Maggie Kilgour notes of
Otranto, “The novel introduces some of the most basic gothic
ingredients” (Kilgour 18), and Frederick Frank, in his introduction to the