The passage I selected is on page 72, “Yes…in the portrait.”<\/p>\n
The passage describes a portrait of Lady Audley painted by a pre-Raphaelite. \u00a0The narrator emphasizes this type of painter’s ability to render even the smallest of details, and it shows in “every glimmer of gold” and “every shadow” (Braddon, 72). \u00a0With this talent, the painter gives a “lurid lightness” to her “blonde complexion”, a “sinister light” to her “deep blue eyes”, and a “wicked look” to her “pretty pouting mouth”. \u00a0The juxtaposition of the darker attributes against the otherwise pleasing features of Lady Audley leads me to believe that she intentionally hides an ominous side underneath her beauty and fair appearance. \u00a0In addition, the repetition of mentioning that “no one but a pre-Raphaelite” could bring this side of her to light means that only someone with an immense aptitude for spotting the subtleties of a subject would be able to detect these aspects of Lady Audley (72). \u00a0This declaration in turn proves that there actually is<\/em> a dark side and suggests that Lady Audley works hard to hide it successfully. \u00a0Until this point, Lady Audley’s hidden side had only suggested a big secret. \u00a0For example, when Phoebe and Luke find a baby’s shoe and lock of hair in a secret drawer belonging to the Lady on page 34. \u00a0However, I think this painting is an indication of her secretive side actually being an evil one, giving Lady Audley potential to be the unexpected antagonist of the story. \u00a0Her big secret will reveal a dark past, and her attempts to keep it hidden will combat the protagonist or plot’s efforts to divulge the truth behind her picturesque facade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The passage I selected is on page 72, “Yes…in the portrait.” The passage describes a portrait of Lady Audley painted by a pre-Raphaelite. \u00a0The narrator emphasizes this type of painter’s ability to render even the smallest of details, and it shows in “every glimmer of gold” and “every shadow” (Braddon, 72). \u00a0With this talent, the … Continue reading Extended Close Reading of Lady Audley’s Secret<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4747,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169398],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2021-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500","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\/4747"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}