{"id":140,"date":"2016-02-12T06:11:33","date_gmt":"2016-02-12T06:11:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/?p=140"},"modified":"2016-02-12T06:12:58","modified_gmt":"2016-02-12T06:12:58","slug":"suddenly-we-care-about-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2016\/02\/12\/suddenly-we-care-about-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"suddenly we care about religion"},"content":{"rendered":"

“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<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

George Talboys disappearance reminds Robert Audley of \u201chis own weakness\u201d aka mortality and how quickly a man can be erased from history. Later Mr. Audley laments how George\u2019s father doesn\u2019t 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 \u201cstronger hand\u201d that now guides his conscience.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“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 … Continue reading suddenly we care about religion<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1374,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123782],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1374"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}