{"id":1723,"date":"2021-09-20T20:32:07","date_gmt":"2021-09-21T00:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/?p=1723"},"modified":"2021-09-20T20:32:07","modified_gmt":"2021-09-21T00:32:07","slug":"la-femme-s-covert-intention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2021\/09\/20\/la-femme-s-covert-intention\/","title":{"rendered":"“La Femme” ‘s Covert Intention"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cSurely a pretty woman never looks prettier than when making tea.\u00a0\u00a0The most feminine and most domestic of all occupations imparts a magic harmony to her every movement, a witchery to\u00a0her every glance…To do away with the tea-table is to rob a woman of her\u00a0legitimate\u00a0empire\u201d (Braddon 222).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Victorians cultivated rigid social structure, despite the time period of mounting social questioning of fronts such as women\u2019s rights.\u00a0\u00a0This passage portrays the picture of domesticity embodied by Lady Audley, entertaining in her husband\u2019s court.\u00a0 Lucy prepares tea under the scrupulous eye of her nephew, Robert.\u00a0 Because this passage is observed from the perspective of a man, it is quite telling of the expectations and unconscious biases that Victorian men hold with regard to their female counterparts.\u00a0\u00a0Robert\u2019s choice of descriptors such as the repetition of the word \u201cpretty\u201d show a surface level of understanding of women, and reinforces the idea that he views her as an ornament for his uncle\u2019s domestic pleasure.\u00a0 Within the private confines of his mind, and interestingly within the confines of the same sentence, he presumes that a woman being \u201cfeminine\u201d and \u201cdomestic\u201d are integral aspects of a home\u2019s harmony.\u00a0 These adjectives indicate that it is a woman\u2019s ability to be submissive that gives her value so to take this from her would be to rob her of her entire purpose, as suggested by the tea table empire.\u00a0\u00a0If a man gives a woman the world in the form of a tea table, it is quite a small sphere is which he expects her to live.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is interesting about this passage as well is the comparison of feminine harmony to witchcraft in the second sentence.\u00a0\u00a0In a way, this choice of word is poignant because, to mention the idiom, Lucy appears to have \u201ccast a spell\u201d upon her husband.\u00a0 He is compliant to her whims because she is the perfect domestic socialite \u2013 the pinnacle of femininity and the epitome of perfection.\u00a0 Throughout subsequent chapters, it is by her delicate pining and gentle pleading that Lady Audley is able to manipulate and misdirect audiences.\u00a0 This realization speaks volumes about the novel as a whole, and though it may sound crazy, it is possible that Lady Audley uses her femininity as a means of deception, which is in direct opposition to the common conceptions about female gentility.\u00a0 Lucy\u2019s actions in subsequent chapters suggest a mask that she uses in public, and a more private desperation for control which lead her to manipulate her position as a beautiful, ornamental wife.\u00a0 It also poses the question to her character is a critique of seemingly archaic womanhood in contrast to broader historical context showing an evolving female character.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSurely a pretty woman never looks prettier than when making tea.\u00a0\u00a0The most feminine and most domestic of all occupations imparts a magic harmony to her every movement, a witchery to\u00a0her every glance…To do away with the tea-table is to rob a woman of her\u00a0legitimate\u00a0empire\u201d (Braddon 222).\u00a0 The Victorians cultivated rigid social structure, despite the time … Continue reading “La Femme” ‘s Covert Intention<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4758,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169398],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1723","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\/1723","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\/4758"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}