48 pages • 1 hour read
Charlotte DacreZofloya
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1806A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and discusses the text’s use of racist stereotypes and its treatment of domestic and familial violence, death by suicide, and rape.
The novel begins in Venice, Italy, in the late 1400s. The Marchese di Loredani is a wealthy nobleman; he is happily married to Laurina, and they have two children: Leonardo and Victoria. On the night of Victoria’s 15th birthday, a handsome German nobleman named Count Ardolph attends the celebration. Ardolph shares mutual friends with the Loredani family and is invited to stay as their guest.
Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary
Unbeknownst to the Loredani family, Ardolph is a womanizer who particularly enjoys seducing married women. He quickly sets his sights on the beautiful Laurina. Although Laurina has been devoted to her husband for years, she is moved by Ardolph’s passionate declarations. She briefly resists, but the two soon begin an affair.
Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary
Unlike the other women he has seduced and discarded, Ardolph develops genuine feelings for Laurina and persuades her to abandon her husband and children. She leaves Venice to go and live with him. The Marchese is devastated; Leonardo runs away from home shortly after his mother leaves, and the Marchese devotes himself to taking care of Victoria. However, he can tell that Victoria is becoming even more willful and selfish.
About a year after Laurina’s desertion, the Marchese runs into Ardolph by chance on the street; the two men fight, and Ardolph fatally stabs the Marchese. On his deathbed, the Marchese begs Victoria to live with integrity and compassion for others. He is interrupted by Laurina, who rushes in to beg forgiveness from her estranged husband. The Marchese urges Laurina to leave Ardolph, return to a life of virtue, find Leonardo, and live quietly with her children away from Venice. Laurina and Victoria both promise to live virtuously, and the Marchese dies.
Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary
When Ardolph learns that Laurina intends to give up their relationship, he is furious and determined to win her back. He tells her to come and stay at his villa, Monte Bello, outside of Venice, and bring Victoria with her; Ardolph claims he will respect Laurina’s wishes if she does not want to resume their relationship. However, once Laurina and Victoria join Ardolph at his villa, she quickly falls even more in love with him.
Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary
Another year passes; Victoria is now 17, and she enjoys living in the carefree and liberal atmosphere of Ardolph’s villa. She meets a nobleman named Berenza, who becomes attracted to her, although he does not think she is a good candidate to become his wife. When Berenza begins trying to seduce Victoria, she is very flattered and excited to have a lover of her own. Victoria readily agrees to run away with him and become his mistress. However, Laurina finds out what is going on and rebukes both Berenza and her daughter: “Is it thus you recompence my indulgence towards you” (61). Victoria is enraged by her mother’s interference, and her violent reaction disturbs Berenza.
Ardolph suggests that Laurina forge a letter so that Berenza will believe Victoria wants him to return to Venice and await further news from her. Once Berenza is gone, Ardolph and Laurina will take Victoria to stay with Signora de Modena, an elderly female relative who will guard Victoria’s chastity closely. Laurina sends the letter, and Berenza leaves the villa.
Part 1, Chapter 6 Summary
The next day, Laurina tells Victoria that Berenza has returned to Venice and that the family is going to depart on a trip after a short visit to Signora de Modena. Victoria is suspicious but goes along with Ardolph and her mother. They arrive at the isolated villa where Signora de Modena, an embittered spinster, lives alone. That night, once Victoria has gone to bed, Ardolph explains to Signora de Modena that he wants to leave Victoria under her supervision: he wants a very close watch kept on her and suggests the Signora lock Victoria up if necessary. Laurina and Ardolph slip away before Victoria awakens; Laurina is upset to leave her daughter, but she readily becomes distracted by her passion for Ardolph, who is happy to have his mistress’ full attention.
On waking, Victoria is horrified to realize that she has been tricked and is now trapped with Signora Modena. She also deduces that Berenza was probably deceived into leaving her. Determined to outwit Signora Modena, Victoria accepts her situation surprisingly quietly, even when Signora Modena locks her up and limits her food. Eventually, Signora Modena tells Victoria that she will have free access to the villa and its grounds, but her only companion will be a servant girl named Catau. Signora Modena tells Victoria that she is sinful and corrupt, in part due to the influence of her mother.
Part 1, Chapter 7 Summary
Time passes and Victoria wonders how she can escape. One day, she finds a small door in the wall encircling the garden; Catau admits that she knows where the key to open the door is located. Victoria asks Catau to bring the key to her, claiming that she merely wants to walk in the woods outside the grounds. The next day, Catau and Victoria open the door; Victoria begins planning how to make her way to Venice.
Part 1, Chapter 8 Summary
Catau and Victoria regularly exit the garden, and each time, Victoria ensures they go a little further away from the grounds of the villa before returning. One evening, when the two young women are quite some distance from the grounds, Victoria abruptly tells Catau that she is not going to return. She demands that Catau switch clothing with her, and gives the servant a diamond ring in exchange for her help. Catau accepts the ring and returns to the villa, while Victoria carries on, now disguised as a servant.
Victoria becomes lost as she attempts to walk to Venice, but a gondolier happens to come upon her and takes her to Venice in his boat. Almost as soon as she arrives, Victoria encounters Berenza, who recognizes her and takes her to his home. Victoria is eager for the two of them to begin a sexual relationship, but Berenza is more hesitant, since “though a refined voluptuary, [he] possessed a noble, virtuous, and philosophical soul” (89).
Part 1, Chapter 9 Summary
The next day, Berenza continues to muse on how to proceed with Victoria; he is suspicious of whether she is truly in love with him, or simply excited about the idea of being pursued by a man. He decides to maintain a platonic relationship with her until he is convinced that she loves him utterly: “My mistress, too, must be mine exclusively, heart and soul” (95). Berenza also explains to Victoria that he has a sporadic relationship with a woman named Megalena Strozzi; he does not consider her to be his true mistress, because he doesn’t genuinely love or trust her. He tells Victoria that if she wants to become his mistress, they both must be fully convinced of her deep and true love for him.
Part 1, Chapter 10 Summary
Time passes and Berenza continues to treat Victoria “as a beloved and innocent sister, rather than as a destined mistress” (96). Victoria decides that she needs to persuade Berenza that she is in love with him (even though she isn’t convinced of her own feelings, either). She begins to be much more withdrawn and quiet, appearing subdued and unhappy. Berenza becomes concerned, and one day, when they are alone, Victoria tells him that she is in love with him and is sad because he does not seem to return her feelings. Berenza is happily convinced that she truly loves him, and the two begin a sexual relationship.
Part 1, Chapter 11 Summary
Victoria is happily living as Berenza’s mistress; she doesn’t know that Berenza has decided it would be inappropriate to marry her. One night, while Victoria and Berenza are out in public together, Victoria notices that a woman seems to be looking at her with anger. That night, Victoria is lying awake while Berenza sleeps next to her; she sees a man creep into their bedchamber. Thinking that Victoria is also asleep, the man approaches the bed and prepares to stab Berenza: Victoria lunges at him and is injured. Berenza awakens, and a fight ensues, but the man gets away. As he flees, Victoria catches sight of his face and realizes that he is her brother Leonardo.
Berenza is very moved that Victoria risked her life to save him; Victoria is happy to think this will heighten his love for her and decides not to tell him that Leonardo was the man who tried to kill him. After a few weeks, Berenza receives a note from Megalena: She expresses her rage that he is now in a relationship with Victoria and reveals that she was the one who sent the assassin. Victoria is left wondering about the connection between Leonardo and Megalena.
Part 1, Chapter 12 Summary
The narrative shifts to explain what happened to Leonardo after he left Venice: He fled after his mother abandoned her home to be with her lover. Leonardo made his way to Florence, where a nobleman named Signor Zappi kindly offered to take him in. However, Signora Zappi (the nobleman’s wife) quickly became attracted to Leonardo; he was indifferent—infatuated instead with her young daughter, Amamia. After about a year, Signora Zappi cornered Leonardo alone in the garden and declared her passion for him. Leonardo was horrified, exclaiming, “it is your daughter, it is your blooming daughter that I love” (108).
Signora Zappi was furious when Leonardo rejected her, and she vowed to have revenge: She told her husband that Leonardo attempted to rape her. Zappi believed his wife and was furious with Leonardo; after Zappi confronted him, Leonardo quickly left the house. After wandering for some time, Leonardo met a peasant woman named Nina whose son had recently passed away. Leonardo offered to stay with Nina and help her by performing the tasks that her son used to do.
Part 1 Analysis
Dacre opens her novel with some of the traditional hallmarks of the Gothic genre, particularly the setting (the distant past and a predominantly Catholic country in continental Europe). Zofloya is a historical novel in that it is set “about the latter end of the fifteenth century” (39)—several centuries before it was written—but Dacre shows little interest in providing historically specific context or referencing late 15th-century political events. Most English Gothic novels utilize a historicized, continental European setting (often France, Spain, or Italy) to engage readers’ interest and to safely distance scandalous events from daily life in Britain. This choice of setting often aligned with anti-Catholic prejudice in Britain (primarily a Protestant country), playing on stereotypes that Catholicism was oppressive to women and trapped them in cruel predicaments.
While Gothic novels were typically set in the remote countryside, Dacre’s novel experiments with a form of urban Gothic, with much of the action (especially at the start of the novel) unfolding in the bustling city of Venice. Up until 1797, Venice was an independent republic and a wealthy and powerful center of global trade. It was a cosmopolitan city that tended to attract visitors from all over the world. As such, it figured in the English imagination as a meeting place of diverse cultures. Centuries before Zofloya, Shakespeare set Othello in Venice, and his play The Merchant of Venice explores the tensions between Jews and Christians in what was then a major center of cultural exchange. In the English 19th century, such imagined meetings—between white, protestant Christians and those variously identified as “other”—were fraught with the fear of corruption. Zofloya, the titular “Moor,” is at home in Venice, and he uses the city’s culturally liberal atmosphere to his advantage as he manipulates the impressionable Victoria.
Dacre explicitly introduces her novel as a kind of moral parable intended to help readers avoid immoral behavior. She also introduces a contrast between the role of literature and works of non-fiction, arguing that “the historian […] must not content himself with simply detailing a series of events” (39). Given the shocking plot events and unabashed depiction of a young woman’s voracious sexual desire, this moral framing provided some protection for Dacre’s reputation and served more broadly as a defense of the novel as a genre. In 1806, the novel as a literary genre was a relatively new genre and was sometimes viewed as a morally suspect form of entertainment. In contrast with poetry and drama, novels were more likely to be consumed by women and less educated individuals, both of whom might turn to fiction in pursuit of excitement rather than moral edification. At the start and conclusion of the novel, Dacre claims that she is relaying the story of Victoria’s fate to illustrate the dangers that await young women who do not exercise strict moral discipline, and she justifies her colorful storytelling as a means of conveying these moral lessons.
Dacre is also clearly interested in depicting how morals and values develop in young people, and especially in tracing The Relationship Between Innate Character and External Influence. The tragic elements of the plot can all be traced back to Laurina’s moral fall when she chooses to abandon her husband and children and pursue an adulterous relationship with Ardolph; Dacre refers to Laurina as “the unfortunate and guilty mother [who] seals the fiat of [her children’s] future destruction, by setting them in her own conduct an example of moral depravity” (49). As a result of Laurina’s adultery and desertion, Victoria becomes the child of a broken home: she loses the moral guidance of a mother, who (especially in this era) was expected to provide an unimpeachable model of virtue and integrity to her daughters. Laurina’s affair with Ardolph deprives her of all moral authority within her family. Even when Victoria returns to live with her mother after her father’s death, she is growing up in an atmosphere of indulgence and moral license. She has lost all respect for her mother, and sees Laurina as having no right to discipline or restrict her; when Laurina tries to forbid Victoria from beginning an illicit relationship with Berenza, Victoria retorts, “when you loved Count Ardolph […] you fled with him” (62).
In contrast with Victoria, Laurina is depicted as an innately moral woman whose transgressions occur despite, not because of, her innate character: “earnestly did Laurina desire to be virtuous, earnestly did she pray for fortitude to preserve her from the power of temptation” (46). She falls prey to Ardolph’s seduction not through lust, but because he flatters her—evidence of the Erosion of Moral Integrity Due to Pride and Vanity. Despite her genuine efforts to uphold her culture’s ideals of femininity and motherhood, she cannot resist a man who woos her and plays on her vanity.
Dacre’s exploration of how parental influence fails Victoria intersects with contemporary debates about human nature and the role of education and socialization. In the latter half of the 18th century, philosophers and writers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau increasingly speculated about innate human nature and the influence of education during childhood development. This led to increasing interest in how best to shape and mold children into productive and socially integrated individuals. Dacre’s narrator takes a clear stance in this debate, stating that “we are in great measure the creatures of education, rather than of organization” (48) (organization referring to innate or organic tendencies).
Victoria is depicted as an individual with a “nature more prone to evil than good” (59) and characterized as “proud, haughty, and self-sufficient---of a wild, ardent, and irrepressible spirit […] of an implacable, revengeful, and cruel nature” (40). This characterization of Victoria subverts the typical depiction of a Gothic heroine who is usually a passive and innocent figure made vulnerable by the advances of an older, predatory male figure. Victoria has an innate tendency to be willful, and she is highly sexualized from a young age, determined to pursue a relationship with Berenza. Victoria is positioned as a figure closer to a masculine protagonist, especially in her active questing in pursuit of her desires. In many Gothic narratives, a young woman is trapped in a remote and foreboding mansion or castle and unable to escape until she is rescued, whereas Victoria quickly escapes from the villa where she is held against her will. Victoria’s growth and development in the absence of strong moral role models leaves her susceptible to the deliberately corrupting influence of Zofloya, allowing Dacre to develop The Relationship Between Innate Character and External Influence. Victoria is poised to develop into a full-on villain because she witnesses, at a formative age, her mother pursuing her desires regardless of consequences.
