Preview of The Bride of Lammermoor Summary:

In addition to the social implications and the political elements in this novel, the pathetic outcome, involving madness and death, appears to indicate a message about pride, extreme malleability of character (in the case of Lucy), and perhaps simply grim destiny (as suggested by the gloomy predictions that dot the text). As is usually the case in literature, the sad forebodings come true; one need only think of Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls and Pilar's deathly foresight to find an example from this century.

The old quotation from Robert Burns about the best laid plans of mice and men also springs to mind as a thematic comment about The Bride of Lammermoor. Almost everyone's plans go awry, from those of the Ashton family and Edgar Ravenswood to those of Bucklaw and Craigengelt. Everyone ends up either disappointed or dead.

Some readers are repelled by the "supernatural...