Daughter Scapegoats and Patriarchal Tyranny: The Mazzini Sisters as Sacrificial Victims in Ann Radcliffe’s A Sicilian Romance (1790)

Since the dawn of time, societies across the world have often used their most vulnerable members as scapegoats to atone for their own ancestral sins or to satisfy their limitless hunger for social and economic ambition. The Gothic, with its emphasis on the darkest shades of humankind, has frequently portrayed these sacrificial scapegoats, alongside their ‘sacrificers’. In Ann Radcliffe’s A Sicilian Romance (1790), the heroines, the Mazzini sisters Julia and Emilia, face a series of horrifying ordeals as they are used as commodities in a social contract, while they defy patriarchal authority and rebel against their cruel destinies.

This paper will analyse the family relationships within the Mazzini circle and the events leading to their collapse, ending with the archetypal departure from the family castle. Departing from René Girard’s theories on scapegoating, we will examine how the Mazzini sisters are turned into sacrificial objects, seen as an opportunity for social and economic advancement. The following paper will first consider the role of daughters as commodities during the late eighteenth century. The second part will present Girard’s scapegoating mechanism, leading to the final analysis of Julia and Emilia as fitting the scapegoating pattern, as they are sacrificed by patriarchal tyranny.