All throughout the novel, there are points where the narrator seems to foreshadow parts of the book that have not happened yet. Oftentimes, these foreshadowed events have a dark undertone. In Chapter 9, after a long day of work pursuing George’s fate and whereabouts, Robert falls into a deep sleep–where he has what seems to be a prophetic dream. Robert dreams of seeing, “A pale, starry face, looking out of the silvery foam, and knew that it was my lady, transformed, beckoning his uncle to destruction…but as he looked at the dismal horizon the storm clouds slowly parted, and from a narrow rent in the darkness a ray of light streamed out upon the hideous waves” (244). This passage is striking because it is the first allusion to the Greek story of the Sirens, mysterious half mermaid women who would lure men to crash their ships on their perch rock. The fact that Robert dreams about Lady Audley in such a manner, could be some allusion to the fact that she is an evil person or has committed some evil. Here, however, the victim is his uncle, and not George, as Sir Michael Audley is the man who is lured out to sea. Instead, we learn that there may be some sort of happy ending in this seemingly written script with regards to George’s death. The “ray of light” that interposes itself upon the deep waves could represent that, out of all the madness, the book could still turn out with somewhat of a happy ending where we learn that George is alive. As we talked about in class, the portrayal of Lady Audley as a monstrous creature like a siren has been mentioned before, but in this instance, we see a ray of hope for the fate of George.
2 thoughts on “Robert the Prophet?”
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Robert’s dream about Lady Audley as a siren luring Sir Michael out to sea is very interesting because as you predicted, George has been (in a sense) lured out to sea by Lady Audley’s siren call. First when their marriage gets rough, George takes to the sea, sailing for Australia, then coming back for her three years later, Helen Talboys’ calling him back and forth across the sea. Again after Lady Audley attempts to kill George, he is sent away from her to New York. Similarly, in the end, Lady Audley’s lies and deceit of Sir Michael send him abroad wishing to never see her again. It seems that the “ray of light” may be that Lady Audley/Helen Talboys’ siren voice, while luring them in at first, ultimately has a tendency to send the men Robert loves running from her.
This post connects nicely with the post titled “Lady Audley: Alluring Siren.” In your post, you mention that this particular conception of Lady Audley as a Siren seems to point to a happy ending for George. This turned out to be true, as by the end of the novel we find George happily alive in the presence of his son, sister, and best-friend. What I find more interesting, however, is how you fleshes out the “Alluring Siren” post in a more literal sense. In the other post, the author mentions that the archetypal lens of a Siren highlights Lady Audley’s weakness. Literally speaking, this would account for the happy ending suggestions that you found: Lady Audley’s physical weakness is what allowed George to survive his fall.