Melmoth the Wanderer · Chapter
XIV explained
Monçada, now in the vault of the Jew Adonijah, is compelled to transcribe manuscripts that recount the stories of those who have faced the tempter.
What happens
Monçada, now in the vault of the Jew Adonijah, is compelled to transcribe manuscripts that recount the stories of those who have faced the tempter. Adonijah reveals his own lifelong quest to understand the being who offers deliverance at the price of the soul, and forces Monçada to confront the horror of his own entanglement. The chapter also shifts to a vision of Immalee, the innocent island goddess, whose encounter with a young lover prefigures her later corruption.
Themes in this chapter
Temptation and Faith
Adonijah recounts his lifelong desire to see and deal with the evil one, while Monçada declares he would spit at the tempter even under torture.
Supernatural and the Gothic
The vault filled with skeletons, the preternatural emotion of Adonijah, and the vision of Immalee as an island goddess create a gothic atmosphere.
Isolation and Alienation
Adonijah describes himself as childless, wifeless, friendless, and Monçada feels isolated by the horrible secret he must bear.
Characters to notice
- Juan di Monçada
Forced by Adonijah to transcribe the manuscripts, he feels himself an added link in a chain drawing him to perdition.
- Adonijah
The aged Jew who has spent his life seeking the tempter; he compels Monçada to write the stories of the skeletons in his vault.
- Immalee
Appears as a vision of a white-skinned 'island goddess' on a desert island, speaking a language unknown to the native lovers.
- Manasseh ben Solomon
Mentioned as 'our brother Solomon' who is in no peril of death, his goods not taken for a spoil.
Key passages
“I felt myself as an added link to the chain, the end of which, held by an invisible hand, was drawing me to perdition; and I was now to become the recorder of my own condemnation.”
Monçada feels he is being forced to participate in his own damnation by transcribing the stories of those who were tempted.
Monçada's horror at being compelled to write the manuscripts.
“From my youth upward, even until now, have I laboured, and behold the time of my deliverance is at hand; yea, and shall be accomplished speedily.”
Adonijah has spent his entire life seeking the tempter, and now believes his quest is nearly over.
Adonijah reveals his lifelong obsession with the being who offers deliverance.
“The form was that of a female, but such as they had never before beheld, for her skin was perfectly white... Her drapery... consisted only of flowers... and altogether composed a feathery fan of wild drapery, which, in truth, beseemed an 'island goddess.'”
The native lovers see a white-skinned woman dressed in flowers and feathers, whom they take for a goddess.
Description of Immalee as a vision of innocence on the desert island.