She is terminally helpless and usually screaming. These woman have began their lives with a blank. The mother, if known, has disappeared and an aunt is usually the substitute as in the case of both Ellena and Antonia. The women's names usually suggest the white, innocent and pristine such as, Virginia and Agnes in "The Monk" and Ellena Rosalba and Signora Bianchi in "The Italian". Identity is insecure in both these characters giving them good reason to be trembling and insecure. In Radcliffe as Schedoni is about to stab Ellena in her sleep he draws her veil from her bosom and freezes, the miniature that has tumbled from her necklace reveals his picture when she says it is the image of her dead father. .
Most of the time she is saved by the virtuous hero, not in the case of "The Monk" however where the heroine, Antonia, is raped and then murdered by her own brother, the monk, Ambrosio. She is not saved by the hero Lorenzo, instead she dies, Lewis" use of bathos and anti-climax at this point is shocking even to the typical Gothic reader. Gothic heroines, particularly Radcliffian ones, are quite contradictory in their actions and implications. They seem to divide neatly into sprightly and helpless, those who pick up a candle and go exploring in the hidden recesses and those who cower fearfully behind doors). Yet, as Edith Birkhead remarks, "Mrs Radcliffe's heroines resemble nothing more than a composite photograph in which all distinctive traits are merged .
into an expressionless type.". Gothic heroines were defenceless victims, weaklings, whimpering, whose sufferings are the source of the villain's erotic fascination. Juliann E. Fleenor said, "The female characters in "The Monk" serve only as vehicles for the sexual and emotional overstatements of the male writer.". A completely unfair comment if we consider the excellent characterisation of Leonella, Elvira and Matilda. .
It is fair to say that we see Antonia and Ellena in the same light, the victim of the piece, the innocent virgin petrified by the wickedness of the world, indeed full of "trembling innocence" but then we must consider that "The Monk" has two heroines, Antonia in the main plot and Agnes in the sub-plot.
