{"id":2401,"date":"2023-09-16T09:30:54","date_gmt":"2023-09-16T13:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/?p=2401"},"modified":"2023-09-16T09:30:54","modified_gmt":"2023-09-16T13:30:54","slug":"descent-to-darkness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2023\/09\/16\/descent-to-darkness\/","title":{"rendered":"Descent to Darkness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cAfter dispatching this letter, Robert had abandoned all thought of assistance from the man who, in the natural course of things, should have been most interested in George’s fate; but now that he found himself advancing every day some step nearer to the end that lay so darkly before him, his mind reverted to this heartlessly indifferent Mr. Harcourt Talboys\u201d (Braddon Chapter 20 online).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This passage depicts the internal conflict of Robert Audley. As he continues his search for the missing George Talboys, Robert remains completely alone in his endeavors. Not even George\u2019s father, the one who should theoretically care most about uncovering George\u2019s disappearance, displays an ounce of worry. In the lines directly preceding these ones, the narrator speaks of Harcourt\u2019s letter to Robert, in which he states his disapproval of George\u2019s marriage to Helen and that he had cut ties with George upon his wedding day. Harcourt proceeds to say that his disappearance is likely a scheme to get Harcourt’s money, as George was broke when he settled down with Helen. As readers, we know this not to be the case, that George\u2019s toils to find gold land him with ample wealth. Nonetheless, this says monuments about George\u2019s support system. Referencing the words of the highlighted passage, the characters surrounding Robert in his hunt for George are \u201cheartlessly indifferent.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

More wording I found particularly interesting was the use of \u201cdarkly\u201d as an adverb. This seems like blatant foreshadowing, that George\u2019s fate has been sealed. The line could be easily rewritten to \u201cthe end that lay before him\u2026\u201d and make sense, though Braddon chooses to include this important descriptive word. It certainly ties into the rest of the novel, as all of the actions of Lucy Audley happen in the shadows. Perhaps \u201cdarkly\u201d carries multiple meanings, referencing not only the book’s emphasis on secrets, but foreshadowing George\u2019s death and Robert’s descent to madness. We already begin to see this narrative of Robert\u2019s madness come to fruition through the threats of Lady Audley and it will be interesting to see how the darkness creeps into the novel exponentially.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cAfter dispatching this letter, Robert had abandoned all thought of assistance from the man who, in the natural course of things, should have been most interested in George’s fate; but now that he found himself advancing every day some step nearer to the end that lay so darkly before him, his mind reverted to this … Continue reading Descent to Darkness<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5342,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169399],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2401","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\/2401","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\/5342"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}