{"id":2372,"date":"2023-09-15T19:15:01","date_gmt":"2023-09-15T23:15:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/?p=2372"},"modified":"2023-09-15T19:15:01","modified_gmt":"2023-09-15T23:15:01","slug":"what-lies-beneath-lady-audley-blog-post-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2023\/09\/15\/what-lies-beneath-lady-audley-blog-post-1\/","title":{"rendered":"What Lies Beneath: Lady Audley Blog Post #1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201c\u2018Dear me!\u2019 she said, \u2018this is very strange. I did not think men were capable of these deep and lasting affections. I thought that one pretty face was as good as another pretty face to them, and that when number one with blue eyes and fair hair died, they had only to look out for number two with black eyes and hair, by way of variety,\u2019\u201d (Braddon 88).<\/em><\/p>\n

Chapter 11 opens with a conversation between Robert, Michael, and Lady Audley regarding the fate of George Talboys. During this exchange, when Lady Audley questions Robert\u2019s concern for George, she learns of the grief Helen\u2019s death has caused him and speaks the aforementioned passage.<\/span><\/p>\n

The way Lady Audley approaches this topic is notably very straightforward despite the previous awkward silence (stemming from Robert\u2019s implication that George has potentially committed suicide). Though she is revealing a great deal about her own approach to relationships and cynicism, she does so with a very matter-of-fact tone. The lack of emotive punctuation (question marks, exclamation points, etc.) indicates her cadence to be rather stable, and her speech is unmarked by any indication of true distress. Despite this tone, such a comment seems deeply out of character for the agreeable persona of Lady Audley. As she has shown herself to be capable of maintaining a composed appearance before, this is not surprising but contributes to her character as someone suspiciously put-together and perfect.<\/span><\/p>\n

Returning to the text, we see this attitude has persisted since before the story takes place, and Lady Audley\u2019s past has left a lasting impact. She feels undeserving of the affection Michael showed her; clearly, she has had negative experiences that color her current understanding of relationships. But what?<\/em> Her disbelief in the affections being \u201cdeep and lasting\u201d (Braddon 88) seems to imply that she does not think of love as a constant, but rather as fleeting. She also refers to the women in her example as \u201cnumber one\u201d and \u201cnumber two\u201d (88), like objects or cattle more than humans with appropriate worth. Her prior beliefs that she is unlucky supplement this idea of instability in love. She herself is very conscious of the <\/span>many<\/span><\/i> factors that influence a relationship other than pure love, and the idea that George\u2019s love was so great he would end his life in the absence of Helen is something she cannot fathom. This passage prompts the reader to delve further into Lady Audley\u2019s true personality past the impression the narrator gives of her.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201c\u2018Dear me!\u2019 she said, \u2018this is very strange. I did not think men were capable of these deep and lasting affections. I thought that one pretty face was as good as another pretty face to them, and that when number one with blue eyes and fair hair died, they had only to look out for … Continue reading What Lies Beneath: Lady Audley Blog Post #1<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5330,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169399],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2023-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372","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\/5330"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}