Course Blog

“She paused beneath its shadow, for the stranger was close upon her. She saw him: O God! she saw him, in that dim evening light. Her brain reeled, her heart stopped beating. She uttered no cry of surprise, no exclamation of terror, but staggered backward and clung for support to the ivied buttress of the archway. With her slender figure crouched into the angle formed by the buttress and the wall which it supported, she stood staring at the new-comer,” -Page 336

This seems to be the tipping point for Lady Audley. For the entire novel up to this point, she had kept her cool when it seemed like her secret was going to be revealed, but now, when she know the hour of her confession has come, she is overcome with shock. Until this point, she had showed little to no emotion when in dire situations, but now, she cannot even stay on her feet. It seems to me that this is the culmination of the entire novel’s worth of emotional suppression, the point at which she can no longer keep her feelings bottled up. This runs opposite to Lady Audley’s character from the rest of the novel. Before this point, she had been stoic when her secret was on the line, and had always found a way to talk herself out of trouble. However, when Robert Audley approaches her, she knows that he is going to confront her about her attempt to murder him, and thus breaks down. This shows that through all the atrocities that Lady Audley committed, she had not forethought. Never once had she thought that somebody would catch her for her crimes, least of all the very person whom she had tried to murder. Thus, Lady Audley’s character is completely reversed in this scene, as she goes from confident and emotionless, to weak and vulnerable, as she realizes that she will be caught and her guilt weighs upon her shoulders, so heavy that she is not even able to stand.

“Hence forth you must seem to me no longer a woman; a guilty woman with a heart which in is worse wickedness has yes some latent power to suffer and feel; I look upon you henceforth as the demoniac incarnation of some evil principle.” (Page 340)

In this passage Robert is accusing to Lady Audley and saying she is no longer a woman. For all Robert’s hatred of women (Page 208), his largest insult is that she is no longer a woman. Later on the same page Lady Audley says, she is a madwoman. This seems to imply that she is separate and different from other woman. Lady Audley is deceitful in her guise as a woman. Her beautiful face, golden hair, and childlike disposition is all veiling who she really is. Lady Audley is set up to be a perfect woman, a loving wife and the center of societal attention, only to later be revealed as a madwoman.

“When the lovely fairy of the ball-room re-enters her dressing-room after the nights long revelry, and throws aside her voluminous Burnous and her faded bouquet, and drops her mask; and like another Cinderella loses the glass-slipper, by whose glitter she has been distinguished, and falls back into her rags and dirt,” (Page 331). Roberts frustrations with woman could be centered around this false for front. Womanly perfection is only a disguised to be taken off in the private of later. This seems to echo Victorian times. At the time, England was ruled by a queen who created rules about propriety that symbolized womanly strength. In this constricting time, everyone was were not as they were, and were not the face they put on in society. The image of woman that the Victorian times created like a mask to be worn on the outside but always needing to be taken off. Lady Audley is a good example of this society pressure and her character shows the ways in which someone could hide.

Throughout my reading of Lady Audley’s Secret, I have constantly questioned whether or not I consider Lady Audley to be a dynamic character. As I have mentioned before, the trope of a femme fatale is nothing new within Victorian literature. Even a semi-sympathetic mad woman had existed before this novel was published (see Jane Eyre). As I read the passage assigned in class today, found on pg. 346, I once again found myself questioning this dynamism. This passage and the text surrounding it prodded me into a position. Lady Audley is, quite possibly, a unique and dynamic character even when other femme fatale characters exist.
This passage has more to do with Sir Michael’s emotions surrounding the revelation that his wife is a formerly married fraud and attempted murderess. He is disappointed and references back to the foreshadowing tinge of regret he felt when he first proposed to Lady Audley (pg. 346). This can be considered a criticism of Victorian marriage customs (as I suggested in class and one of my colleagues “borrowed” from me on this blog) it made me revisit my own interpretation of Lady Audley and the larger societal implications of her character. Immediately after we learn of Sir Michael’s disappointment, Lady Audley offers her own defense. Her actions are a necessity because men had failed her starting with her alcoholic father. George Talboys “allied a helpless girl to poverty” and “had left her no protector… a slave allied for ever to beggary and obscurity” (pg. 347). In this regard, no matter how materialistic or superficial, men had failed to fulfill their obligations to her thus necessitating the resulting actions. In order to provide for herself, she needed to stage her death and marry another wealthy man. The only factor mitigating this sympathetic situation, as my female colleagues pointed out, was her abandonment of her own child.
So why does this matter to anyone but myself? This is possibly a literary criticism of feminine Victorian norms. A man, George Talboys, could abandon his entire family, but the matriarch, Lady Audley, could not escape the situation alive without ruining her reputation or neglecting her responsibility. Instead, she decided to stage her death. Furthermore, she is a sympathetic product of her environment. Without a (sane) mother, she was forced to endure an alcoholic father followed by a fruitless marriage doomed to failure. Short of outright advocating for divorce, I think the unsavory aspects of the situation (Georgy’s abandonment) are purposefully meant to stymie this claim; this text seems to criticize the inability to afford women any sort of option out after a marriage is conducted. The irony is that now Sir Michael has a way out of his betrothal to Lady Audley due to her bigamy. Still, he is not so much a victim of deception as he is to his own impulse and disregard for gut feelings.

Since the disappearance of George Talboys, Robert Audley has been obsessively searching clues that lead to his body. In the beginning, Robert seemed to be nothing but a concerned friend. As the story progresses, I am starting to notice this weird obsession that Robert has with George’s disappearance. In chapter two of the second volume, Robert questions his feelings for George: “Who would have thought that I could have grown so fond of the fellow,” he muttered, “or feel so lonely without him? …” (163) So, why is Robert so “fond” of George? Why is he willing to give up everything he owns to have George by his side.  I believe that these questions may lead us to a deeper discovery of the relationship between Robert and George. I cannot help but question whether or not these two characters share a kind of common bond. Or, perhaps his obsession with George’s disappearance indicates that Robert knows more than he’s telling us. Why does he want to find George so badly? And, more importantly, why is he almost positive that George is dead? Robert may have an inkling about what has happened to George, and who might have been involved. However, since the narrator is unreliable, we cannot be sure whether or not Robert is hiding something from us or not.

 

 

““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.

“What does it mean?” he thought. “She is altogether a different being to the wretched, helpless creature who dropped her mask for a moment, and looked at me with her own pitiful face, in the little room at Mount Stanning, four hours ago. What has happened to cause the change?” (148)

In this passage Mr. Audley had just run into Lady Audley at the train station in London. Lady Audley greets him and seems to be in a normal state of mind, compared to the fearful women he had seen just hours before. As Robert helps Lady Audley into the train, his thoughts begin to question her change in behavior. The word choice here is very important in terms of her emotional behavior as it reveals that Lady Audley can go back and forth between extreme states of being a “wretched, helpless creature” and “pitiful” to having a completely normal conversation with Robert. The readers saw Lady Audley almost at her breaking point , but only hours later the readers are told she is complete fine. This leads to questions about her sanity and her past life, as Braddon also uses the word “mask” to describe the way she normally acts and how she had dropped her mask only for a short while. This indicates that she is covering up her true self. The implications in this paragraph leads to questions about Lady Audley’s mental state. Is Lady Audley emotional unstable and does it have anything to do with her past? If so, what happened in her past to make her so weak and vulnerable? Why does she put on a mask in public but in private she seems to break down? Is she afraid of something or someone? Does Lady Audley have multiple personalities? Finally, the most important question to be asked is what is Lady Audley hiding?

“He rested his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. The one purpose which had slowly grown up in his careless nature until it had become powerful enough to work a change in that very nature, made him what he had never been before – a Christian; conscious of his own weakness; anxious to keep to the strict line of duty; fearful to swerve from the conscientious discharge of the strange task that had been forced upon him; and reliant on a stronger hand than his own to point the way which he was to go.” pg. 159

Prior to Volume II, it is difficult to recall a mention of religion that was carefully written so as to foreshadow future events other than the priests robes hidden in the crawlspace beneath Lady Audley’s quarters. Braddon has been reserved in her use of religious symbolism until this moment. Without being literally in prayer, Robert Audley occupies his hands and sits in contemplation. The deliberate mention of Christianity suddenly harkens back to the mention of the priest robes earlier, and whether there is a divine influence on the proceeding story.

George Talboys disappearance reminds Robert Audley of “his own weakness” aka mortality and how quickly a man can be erased from history. Later Mr. Audley laments how George’s father doesn’t even consider him a son, nor does he have a wife to leave a widow to miss him. Robert assumes the detective role and repeatedly comments on the “stronger hand” that now guides his conscience.

This passage strongly emphasizes both the responsibility and powerlessness Robert Audley feels as he searches for the truth. It now involves the notion of a divine reckoning that is inevitable for those who have committed a crime. Considering our recent discussion in class about the historical context of the story, I imagine these themes arose from appealing to the likely dominant Christian ethos of the time.

“I believe,” said Robert, in the same solemn, relentless voice, “that my friend never left Essex; and I believe that he died on the 7^th of September last.”

“Oh! No, no – for God’s sake, no!” he shrieked hoarsely. “No! you don’t know what you say – you don’t know what you ask me to think – you don’t know what your words mean!” (172)

 

In this passage as Mr. Maldon is informed of George’s death, his adamant refusal and grief stricken reception of this news affirms our suspicions that he has been hiding something. Mr. Maldon’s repetition of the word “no” could be interpreted as the disbelief he claims, but it could also be regret and sadness for the implications of what the circumstances of George’s death must mean. He also says “you don’t know what you ask me to think” and “you don’t know what your words mean,” implying that he is hiding something from Robert, either about George or about “the pretty lady.” As Robert already suspects Lady Audley’s involvement in George’s death, I believe Mr. Maldon must know something about Lady Audley, as well. The phrase “you don’t know what your words mean” may also have deeper meaning for the novel as a whole with the themes of secrets and maybe we as readers do not yet know what some things mean.

 

From the use of the words solemn and shrieked, it seems as if there is some worse sadness here for Mr. Maldon than the death of his son in law, whom he didn’t seem to like very much. Later Mr. Maldon mentions an officer arresting a murderer and not implicating other people, although Robert has not mentioned murder or anyone he might implicate. This raises questions of whether Mr. Maldon is trying to protect Lady Audley and why? Is Lady Audley really Helen Talboys and Mr. Maldon cannot bear to think of his daughter murdering her husband? Is there someone else he is trying to protect?

“How I hate this desolate month!” my lady said, as she walked about the garden, shivering beneath her sable mantle. “Everything dropping to ruin and decay, and the cold flicker of the sun lighting up the ugliness of the earth, as the glare of gas-lamps lights the wrinkles of an old woman. Shall I ever grow old, Phoebe? Will my hair ever drop off as the leaves are falling from those trees, and leave me wan and bare like them? What is to become of me when I grow old?”

She shivered at the thought of this more than she had done at the wintry breeze, and muffling herself closely in her fur, walked so fast, that her maid had some difficulty in keeping up with her. (108,109)

After closely looking at this passage, it was evident to me that although Lady Audley is referring to the literal, ‘ugliness of the earth’ and to what will happen to her when she grows old, the passage reveals Lady Audley’s guilt towards her actions thus far. When she describes, ‘everything dropping to ruin and decay, and the cold flicker of the sun lighting up the ugliness of the earth,’, she could be alluding to the complicated situation she is now in due to George Talboys’ return to England and the unlikely chance that he ends up residing in Audley and how George or someone else could piece the story together if they find out about her past which relates to when Lady Audley says, ‘the cold flicker of the sun lighting up the ugliness of the earth.’, which almost sounds like, ‘the harsh reality lighting up the truth of the situation’.

Lady Audley also make herself seem much older than she actually is from this passage, she repeats the word, ‘old’, three times in relation to herself, which is odd considering how short the passage is as well as how young she is. This hints at her past because she sounds as if she is already tired and ready to give up and the life that Phoebe thinks Lady Audley lived, gives no reason for her to sound so disheartened. However, because Phoebe found the baby slipper and lock of hair, she might begin to piece things together. Also, as readers we know about more about Lady Audley’s past so this passage perfectly describes someone much older than their years, already defeated.

Braddon even adds, ‘she shivered at the thought of this more than she had done at the wintry breeze,’, confirming my thoughts about her guilt and panic towards her secret.