Gormenghast (castle)
| Gormenghast | |
|---|---|
| Gormenghast series location | |
| Created by | Mervyn Peake |
| Genre | Gothic fantasy, fantasy of manners |
| Type | Castle |
| Notable locations | Library, Hall of Bright Carvings, etc. |
| Notable characters | Sepulchrave, Titus Groan, Lady Fuchsia Groan, Steerpike |
Gormenghast is a fictional castle of titanic proportions that features prominently in a series of fantasy works penned by Mervyn Peake. It is the setting for the first two books in the Gormenghast series, Titus Groan and Gormenghast. It incorporates many of the elements of both medieval castles and Regency period stately homes, though in practice it operates like a small city-state. It has its own government, a Byzantine system of laws and rituals, a rigid class system, and is seemingly self-sufficient. The castle is home to the ancient House of Groan who have, as the Earls of Groan, ruled for centuries without anything changing.
Ritual plays a large part in the daily life of all characters in the castle, most of all the Earl of Gormenghast, whose days are largely spent adhering to the obscure and esoteric tenets of Gormenghast tradition. Titus' dread and rebellion against the iron letter of Gormenghast Law becomes one of the main themes in the series leading to his preoccupation with freedom.
The castle has become synonymous with large, sprawling buildings and has been used as a reference point in other works of fiction.
The castle is a huge ivy-covered mass, giving the impression more of a semi-deserted city than a single structure. Its immense, rambling outline has been familiar to the inhabitants since time immemorial, who know "every bay, inlet and headland of the great stone island of the Groans, of its sheer cliffs, of its crumbling outcrops, the broken line of the towers.". Apart from the inhabited sections, vast areas of the castle are abandoned and in a dilapidated state, with much of it covered in impenetrable vegetation: "Acres of ivy spread themselves like water over the roofs. Not a head appeared at any of those topmost teeth-like windows that ran along the castle's brow" The further reaches of the castle are dotted with many towers, and the highest of them, the Tower of Flints, is inhabited by great numbers of owls and dominates the landscape of the castle. The Tower is a forbidding, brooding presence: "patched unevenly with black ivy, (it) arose like a mutilated finger from the fists of knuckled masonry". The character Steerpike, climbing across the roofs of the castle, sees the castle as an unending and monumentally complex roofscape. In fact, he travels across its expanse for over a day and still does not cover all of it.
It is impossible to give an accurate estimate of the size of the castle and its grounds, but it appears to be at least several square miles in area. For instance, the Bright Carvers must travel three miles (5 km) through the castle grounds from their homes along the north Outer Wall to the Carver's Courtyard in the south west corner of the Outer Walls. It is also stated at one point that the Tower of Flints in the eastern wing of the castle is over a mile away from the rooms of the twin aunts of Titus, Cora and Clarice, in the southern wing. In the second book, Gormenghast, a flood drowns the lowest levels of the castle and turns the upper regions into stone islands, yet still there is accommodation for the regular inhabitants and an influx of refugees, with very substantial areas still empty.
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