Interrupted Event in The Castle of Otranto
             Horace Walpole creates a gothic tale filled with fascinating events and a wonderful plot. Within the story a new crisis or event often arises before the current one is resolved and this effect creates so much suspense. These events and crisis that arise seemingly fulfill Walpole's goal of creating a terror and suspense filled novel to capture the reader's attention. Walpole brilliantly gathers the reader's attention with the same intensity as a Shakespeare drama, but keeps the plot thickening with the interruptions.
             At the very beginning of the story the wedding between Manfred's son and Isabella is the first event to be interrupted and even finding out what actually happen to Manfred's son is an event itself which really gets interrupted. This interruption in what the reader suspects may be the plot of the story begins to create the first signs of suspense and gives the text a mystical feeling. Every time Manfred goes into a rage over his son's death, something else happens to suspend or enrage him further. The description of the plumes waving in the air as Manfred gazes out the window is interesting because even his gaze at the mysteriously large plumes is interrupted. However, the reader is able to gain some insight into their meaning within the story as they are mentioned later in the story, and again the same type of interrupted scene occurs.
             Throughout the novel, the interrupted scenes do create the suspense which makes the story somewhat unbelievable. The mystery which surrounds the story thickens as each event is interrupted and these interruptions make it harder for the reader to know what is real and what may have been imagined. For instance the two men who interrupt Manfred to tell him about the giant that one of them has seen in the great hall, this gives the reader the sense that what they have seen may have been a figment of their imaginat...