Author: Michelle

Although one might think that Bram Stoker is describing the British xenophobic attitudes of Victorian England, I believe the fear of an unknown future is what this is all about. This book was written at a time when there were some many new and emerging ideas and the birth of many of the sciences and philosophical thought took root in the Victorian era.

A crisis in faith ensued during this time. People were questioning organized religion and its role in their lives. When Darwin’s Theory of Evolution was printed and the discovery of the Neanderthal Man made the news, people started questioning the meaning of time, faith, spirituality and mysticism. Time was no longer linear, and people struggle with the biblical teachings that the universe was created in 7 days. If the bible is wrong, what is right?

Many began contemplating mysticism and the supernatural world. Although the Roman Catholic Church was not the predominant religion of England, and had shared a very turbulent history with Anglicism, all of the ritual and mysticism connected to catholicism captured wide interest. There was even a movement of people wanting to incorporate some of the rituals of Catholicism into the Anglican Church. The incense, chants, vestments, and sacred relics titillated and captured the attention of those questioning their own beliefs about life and death.

The bones of saints and martyrs buried in crypts beneath the floors of cathedrals. The body of a saint, contained in a glass case, undefiled by decomposition for hundreds of years. The vaults in small chapels within cathedrals, containing bishops and cardinals, and the faithful pray over them. The rise in interest in demonic possession and exorcism drew many into the realm of the supernatural. “The man was simply fastened by his hands, tied one over the other, to a spoke of the wheel. Between the inner hand and the wood was a crucifix, the set of beads on which it was fastened being around both wrists and wheel, and all kept fast by binding cords”. The Coast Guard, having determined the man had to have tied himself, forces the onlookers to know that something diabolical had to have happened. The log book supports this assumption.

“I cannot!” cried my lady, pushing her hair fiercely from her white forehead, and fixing her dilated eyes upon Robert Audley, “I cannot!” Has my beauty brought me to this? Have I plotted and schemed to shield myself, and laid awake in the long deadly nights trembling to think of my dangers, for this? I had better have given up at once, since this was to be the end. I had better have yielded to the curse that was upon me, and given up when George Talboys first came back to England.” page 384, volume III, chapter VI

Okay, there is a lot packed into this short paragraph. The italicized “cannot’s” and “this’s” I though at first to be signs of despair. Now, not so much.

This paragraph is about Lady Audley’s reaction to the madhouse that Robert has brought her to. Robert tells her she can spend the rest of her life here in this institution and repent for all her evil ways, as “many a good and holy woman in this Catholic country freely takes upon herself.”

Her repeated “I cannot!” might mean that she isn’t repentant, and will suffer the consequences of her sins in a madhouse, but in a version she didn’t know existed before her arrival here.  When she was a young girl she visited her mother in a public sanitarium, a horrid, disgusting fate she fears for herself. But, unbeknownst to her, wealthy people don’t go to those kinds of places. What if she is really saying “BONUS!!!“? Remember? She packed up all of those beautiful things before she left Audley Court, and I thought that was really odd at the time. If you are going to be locked away somewhere, why bring all your “stuff”. Now it has a different meaning for me.

I think she’s thinking “Damn! If this is how I will live my life; in luxury, no plotting, no scheming, or looking over my shoulder for someone to out me, no fear of being thrown out of Audley Court to be a pauper again, I should have given up my secret a long time ago!!”. In this madhouse, she has everything she always wanted; to be taken care of, to cherish her possessions, and to be left alone. She has hit a jack pot. She might be locked in, but troublesome realities and the needs of other people, are locked out. There are no men she has to perform for, and on whose affection her desired lifestyle relies. She is finally free to be herself, by herself, free to be selfish and self-absorbed, and finally free of the iron mask that weighed her down with exhausting performances for others.  She is now able to be herself, gloriously free of her manufactured identity.

““I hate women,” he thought savagely. “They’re bold, brazen, abominable creatures, invented for the annoyance and destruction of their superiors. Look at this business of poor George’s! It’s all a woman’s work from one end to the other. He marries a woman, and his father casts him off, penniless and professionless.  He hears of the woman’s death and he breaks his heart – his good, honest, manly heart, worth a million of the treacherous lumps of self-interest and mercenary calculation which beat in a woman’s breasts.  He goes to a woman’s house and he is never seen alive again. And now I find myself driven into a corner by another woman, of whose existence I had never thought until this day.”” Page 208-209

I believe that this passage is very telling. A few paragraphs before, he describes women as a kind of tsunamic force behind men, driving them to conform to the image the wife has construed and forced upon them. Man is naked clay in the hands of manipulative, cunning, thoroughly unpitying women, who are above else never lazy, and never quiet. They force a man into the worst of possible circumstances against his will or inclinations, relentless in the pursuit of their own feminine ambitions.

However, a common thread thus far has contradicted his claim of hating the fairer sex. His proclivity to have somewhat strong emotions almost immediately upon meeting two of the women in this story, would indicate an impulsive personality that does anything but “hate” women. I believe he just lacks the energy, feeling underwhelmed and ill-equipped to understand the feminine Dasein. This could be the reason behind his wishy-washy, emotional apathy that soon settles in after the initial attraction.

The first, Lady Audley, dazzled him with her girlish charms, and until the disappearance of George, fears he is falling in love with her. His initial unease at the sudden and unlikely departure of his friend eventually leads to an ever growing suspicion that Lady Audley has somehow done away with him. Searching for answers, he learns of more details that point to her as the culprit behind a heinous crime.

The second woman is George Talboys’ sister Clara. She chases down Robert’s carriage and is visibly upset by the news of George’s possible death. She asks Robert to continue in his search of the truth, and should he refuse, she would get to the bottom of the mystery herself. His initial relief at the thought of being able to drop the search for George’s disappearance is quickly abandoned. Her strong emotions to the mystery of her beloved brother’s disappearance move Robert to quickly agree to maintain his investigation, but in the above quoted paragraph, he contradicts the events of their first meeting. He sees her physical beauty, and the pain of her distress, and assigns her very positive attributes due to her strength, resolve, and obvious affection for her brother. This action, in his mind, has driven him “into a corner”, but in reality, I believe it is what he wants to do. He may just be uncomfortable in his new role as a man with a cause; an equal force to be reckoned with, equally capable of the resolve to carry out his ambition.

Robert is perhaps just afflicted with the class-driven malaise of his time.  A rich, unambitious lounger who lacks passion and drive, and is therefore bored with his whole existence, until something bad happens to someone he cares about. His uncle’s impression that Robert’s laziness indicates a slow mind will be proven wrong.