30 pages • 1 hour read
Lord George Gordon Byron (Lord Byron)Manfred
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1817A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Manfred
Manfred is the protagonist of Manfred, and his thoughts and conflicts drive the plot of the drama. Manfred struggles with profound ambivalence over his own guilt and what penance he owes for it throughout the play. To Manfred, salvation via nature, religion, or supernatural forces all require him to relinquish some measure of personal agency, and Manfred ultimately decides to maintain agency by submitting to death rather than accepting salvation from an external source. Desperate for absolution yet unable to forgive himself or accept forgiveness from others, the brooding Manfred feels doomed, plagued by feelings of guilt for his relationship with Astarte. The cause of this guilt is never explained directly, but there are suggestions that their relationship was incestuous, and that Manfred feels torn between his love for Astarte and his shame over the relationship. Manfred’s tortuous ambivalence is sustained from the beginning to the end of Manfred, and is what drives Manfred to invoke dark spirits, seeking a way to speak again with the deceased Astarte and find a way to relieve his guilt. When Astarte tells Manfred he must die at the end of Act II, her condemnation is the only external evaluation of his guilt that Manfred accepts unconditionally.
While Manfred’s motivations as a character do not change—he consistently seeks to alleviate his suffering, albeit via different tactics in each act—readers are given more insight into his background and conflicts. For example, Manuel describes how Manfred’s introspective, brooding personality is different from his father’s more outgoing personality, suggesting that Manfred’s sense that he has fallen is not tied to his guilt over Astarte alone. Likewise, in Act III, Scene 4, Manfred momentarily seems unwilling to go to his death, implying that although his feelings of doom are present from the first lines, he has not resigned himself to his fate easily. In the last lines of the play, when the Abbot of St. Maurice wonders what will become of Manfred’s soul, it closes the drama by pointing to Manfred’s profoundly unsettled character.
The Chamois Hunter
The Chamois Hunter shows great care for Manfred, literally saving his life by pulling him back from leaping to his death in the Alpine cliffs. A down-to-earth, good-hearted, and hospitable man who earnestly tries to help Manfred, the Chamois Hunter exemplifies Romanticism’s trope of naïve but pure characters who are close to nature. His character creates contrasts that highlight Manfred’s broken, doomed, and tortured personality, and suggests the healing powers of the natural world from which Manfred has isolated himself by his unnatural relationship with Astarte and pursuit of dark arts. The Chamois Hunter also urges Manfred to seek solace in religion, foreshadowing the Abbot of St. Maurice’s attempt to do the same. Though the attempt fails, it emphasizes both the goodness of the Chamois Hunter’s soul, and Manfred’s feelings of hopelessness.
The Abbot of St. Maurice
Like the Chamois Hunter, the Abbot of St. Maurice earnestly tires to help Manfred, recognizing that the man is in existential distress. The Abbot is a religious authority, so it is no surprise that he urges Manfred to seek solace in religion. Although Manfred feels so doomed as to reject religious salvation outright, the drama does not cast the religious cause in a simplistic way. Instead, the Abbot shows patience with Manfred, and a willingness to reach Manfred on his own terms. For example, when Manfred states he feels he will only find guilt and punishment in religion, the Abbot gently responds that religion instead offers peace and salvation.
The Abbot shows the extent of his care for Manfred by also suggesting that even people who will not accept religious salvation can find other reasons for living. Manfred does not accept the Abbot’s suggestions, even as last rites at the moment of his death, as Manfred’s only desire is to end his suffering, even if it means his death. The Abbot’s last lines in the play, in which he wonders about the fate of Manfred’s unsettled soul, insinuate that even the Abbot is not certain of Manfred’s condemnation or salvation.
Astarte
Astarte only appears in Manfred as a memory of Manfred’s, and as a ghostly spirit conjured by the demon lord Arimanes. Moreover, for much of her brief appearance in the play, she is entirely silent, despite Manfred’s pleas for her to speak. The version of Astarte that appears as a vision before Manfred is transformed; Manfred notes how her color and appearance have changed. The scant few words she does finally speak are only to state his name and that his life will end the next day. In the light of Manfred’s belief in his doomed fate, while Astarte of the past was Manfred’s beloved, the Astarte who appears in the play seems like more of a manifestation of his inner guilt and torments. When the spirt of Astarte tells Manfred he is doomed to die, it is the only external evaluation of his guilt and the possibility of salvation that Manfred accepts. Whether this indicates the degree of Manfred’s guilt—in that only Astarte, the woman he wronged, has power over him—or the degree of Manfred’s isolation—he will only accept a verdict that mirrors his own self-condemnation—is uncertain. In either case, Astarte embodies both Manfred’s failures and his greatest desires, signifying how Manfred’s pursuits, both of Astarte and forbidden knowledge, have led him to his own destruction.
Related Titles
By Lord George Gordon Byron (Lord Byron)
