Un-mysterious Udolpho

Although The Mysteries of Udolpho is a nice book, rich with the description of pastoral settings and dark haunts, to me, it completely lacks mystery. While Radcliffe’s novel is revolutionary to Gothic literature, it follows the same 18th-century conventions we have been studying, and in my opinion, was devoid imagination. Like any of the heroines we have read about, Emily is beautiful (Evelina/ Pamela/ Sophia) and has had horrible injustices inflicted upon her (Evelina/ Pamela). She is moral, but she is sensitive and overdramatic—swooning a good deal (how stereotypical female!).
The Gothic horror, while at first well done, lost momentum as Radcliffe explained all the ‘mysteries’ that had taken place to a T—and the end result was simply too neat. While Radcliffe is famous for her terror inducing novel, I walked away with my head floating with pleasant pastoral scenes, instead.
Because all the mysteries are solved so anti-climactically, what stood out to me was the need to moderate sensibility—and approach problems with logic. This call for emotional restraint is prominent as St. Aubert warns Emily, “Above all... do not indulge in the pride of fine feeling, the romantic error of amiable minds. Those who really possess sensibility ought early to be taught that it is a dangerous quality, which is continually extracting the excess of misery or delight from every surrounding circumstance.” Because Emily so often succumbs to sensibility, she is highly superstitious, and constantly falls victim to her own curiosity.