The subtitle to Richard Doddridge Blackmore’s seminal novel Lorna Doone is simply A Romance of Exmoor.  This tells what the book is on a number of levels.  Of course, on the surface it simply notes that the tale is a romantic story which takes place in the southwestern English region. When one considers what care Blackmore takes to describe the landscape and its woods, rivers, fields, and valleys, one could also imagine the subtitle as meaning a romance to or with Exmoor.  The land is a constant consideration in the book, and often it becomes a part of the story and helps the reader understand people and events simply with its descriptions of the places where they live or where they take place.

            One such instance comes early in the novel.  John Ridd, the main character’s father with whom he shares his name, was killed by a member of the Doone clan, a wild, unruly family of robbers and killers who hold the countryside of Exmoor in terror.  Shortly thereafter his wife bravely travels to Doone Valley, the vale in Bagworthy Forest where the family resided, to confront them and learn the truth behind her hasband’s death.  Whereas in the days before the novel this and other areas had gone by other names, the popularity of Blackmore’s book has made the names he refers to them as into their standard names.    

            The first thing she encounters is a “hollow and barren entrance” to the valley; not a gate, but “only darkness to go through.” This creates a particularly strong image for the reader.  It accentuates the feeling of dread and evil which Blackmore wants to create around the Doones.  The image calls to mind that of the entrance to Hell in Dante’s Inferno with its famous line

“Abandon hope all ye who enter here.” There is no gate like one would expect to find at the entrance to a civilized persons’ residence.  Instead, there is only darkness, as if she is descending into the worst part of the human soul which the Doones inhabit.

            Mrs. Ridd is blindfolded by henchmen and led down into the valley on “a rough and headstrong road.” This seems a pretty funny description of the road to the Doones’ place, as it is a perfect personification of the people who live at the end of it.  I’m not completely sure that the adjective of “headstrong” has been used correctly, as I’ve never before seen it used to describe an inanimate object.  This seems like a simple illustration of the way Blackmore relates his images and landscapes back to his story and characters.

            Once they reach the end of this road the men take off the blindfold and Blackmore launches into his first long, sustained description of the landscape.

For she stood at the head of a deep green valley, carved from out the mountains in a perfect oval, with a fence of sheer rock standing round it, eighty feet or a hundred high; from whose brink black wooded hills swept up to the sky-line. By her side a little river glided out from underground with a soft dark babble, unawares of daylight; then growing brighter, lapsed away, and fell into the valley. Then, as it ran down the meadow, alders stood on either marge, and grass was blading out upon it, and yellow tufts of rushes gathered, looking at the hurry. But further down, on either bank, were covered houses built of stone, square and roughly cornered, set as if the brook were meant to be the street between them. Only one room high they were, and not placed opposite each other, but in and out as skittles are; only that the first of all, which proved to be the captain's, was a sort of double house, or rather two houses joined together by a plank-bridge, over the river.

The deep green color of the valley serves the reader as a symbolic reminder of one of the main sins of the Doones, the Deadly Sin of Envy, as green has long been the color of envy; it is Shakespeare’s green-eyed monster.  The Doones are envious of the outside world which grows and prospers even after they have fallen due to courtly manipulations.

This, of course, is also caused by their pride.  All of this has led them to a life of thievery and murder.

            The fact that the valley is in the shape of an oval is also revealing.  Since ancient times, the symbol for perfection has been the circle, a single line perfectly round.  An oval, though, is a single line but without a circle’s roundness. It is twisted, just like the Doones. 

            Another notable thing about this landscape is the sheer-rock fence which surrounds the valley.  This fence serves the Doones as a protection and shield from the outside world.  It also could be seen as a wall not to keep things out, but to keep things in. It isolates the Doone clan. This isolation from the outside world has caused their anger about the injustices done to them to grow and fester, just as anger locked in the heart causes it to develop into hatred.  The things done to the Doones were truly evil, but because they have cut themselves off, both in an isolationist sense and in a natural one, they have become evil as well.

            The only thing that enters Doone Valley easily is the river, which runs into and through it. Early on, as itcomes from underground, the stream is personified as being unaware of the daylight.  Eventually, though, it becomes brighter and falls.  This could be seen as an early foretelling of the Doone’s own downfall, as they are in darkness, will be brought to light, and will fall. 

            Their homes are built on the banks of this river, and even thesefeatures are reflective of their occupants.  They are made of stone, the material that also seems to be what the Doone’s hearts are made from. They and their houses are rough and imperfectly constructed, with rough corners.  The homes have one story like the Doones have one vision, that of revenge.  Their arrangement is interesting, as they are set up like skittles, a game with pins that was the precursor of our modern bowling.  This, of course, offers a much more humorous foreshadowing of the fall of the Doones, like their bowling pins. Their modest homes also serve as another motivation for the family’s hatred, as they were once a much more proud and wealthy family.  Their current situation, living in small houses in the middle of a secluded valley, could only possibly make them more angry at the world.

            Throughout this passage, we see how R. D. Blackmore uses the natural landscape of the Doone’s valley, as well as the construction and arrangement of their homes, to reflect the evil family’s character, as well as to foreshadow their eventual destruction.  He makes the land as much a character as the Doones and uses his eye for imagery to describe the natural world in such a way that helps the reader see the story’s characters in it.  The world of Lorna Doone is one of great natural beauty, both here and in the rest of the novel, but even in a beautiful world emotions like anger and hate can turn a family to hate and murder.   “Deep in the quiet valley there, away from noise, and violence, and brawl[...]any man would have deemed them homes of simple mind and innocence,” Blackmore writes, “Yet not a single house stood there but was the home of murder.”

© Copyright Isaac Miller 2007