The Monk: A Romance

Ambrosio is the son of Elvira and the brother of Antonia, though he is unaware of this until the novel’s end. The son of a common woman and a nobleman, Ambrosio’s noble relatives took him from his mother as a child and abandoned him at the Capuchin monastery, where he rose through the ranks to become the monastery’s head. Ambrosio achieves this position through his outstanding personal qualities and rigorous discipline; the narrative describes Ambrosio as handsome, intelligent, charismatic, and a spell-binding orator. Ambrosio is famed throughout Madrid for his strict adherence to the rules of his order, especially those demanding isolation from the outside world and sexual purity. However, Ambrosio is also—the narrative reveals—proud, vain, arrogant, and overly-conscious of his public reputation. Most significantly, Ambrosio believes himself different from others in his ability to resist temptation: “[I am] proof against temptation. Temptation, did I say? To me it would be none” (33). Starting with Ambrosio atop this height of virtue and self-confidence, the narrative portrays Ambrosio’s rapid fall into the depths of sin and depravity—he ultimately commits the detested sins of matricide and incest—to broadly illustrate Human Frailty in the Face of Temptation.