\u201cIn those troublesome dreams he saw Audley Court, rooted up from amidst the green pastures and the shady hedgerows of Essex, standing bare and unprotected upon that desolate northern shore, threatened by the rapid rising of a boisterous sea, whose waves seemed gathering upward to descend and crush the house he loved. As the hurrying waves rolled nearer and nearer to the stately mansion, the sleeper saw a pale, starry face looking out of the silvery foam, and knew that it was my lady, transformed into a mermaid, beckoning his uncle to destruction.\u201d Volume 2, Chapter 9.<\/p>\n
This passage continues a theme in the novel of depicting women as otherworldly and mystical. Lady Audley being a siren is significant because sirens tend to represent ideas of temptation and deception. Robert sees Lady Audley as an evil entity, luring the good men in his life (George and Sir Michael) to their demise. This ties into the idea that gothic literature often references, that women who express their sexuality are inherently evil and manipulative. Language such as \u201cbare\u201d and \u201cunprotected\u201d indicate that the men of Audley court were vulnerable to the destruction Lady Audley would bring. In this dream, the waves symbolize the danger that the Audley family is in. Lady Audley being a siren implies that she is controlling the waves, as sirens often have power over water in literature.<\/p>\n
Robert being so absorbed with Lady Audley\u2019s gender and sexuality could be indicative that he is jealous of her. It is hinted that Robert has feelings for George mainly through his relationship with Clara, but his feelings towards Lady Audley convey a similar message. Lady Audley is able to have a hold over George that Robert never will, and that may be the cause of his resentment for her. In this passage specifically, Robert expresses a feeling of helplessness and not being able to steer his uncle away from Lady Audley\u2019s influence. Robert likely feels a similar way about Lady Audley\u2019s former influence on George. This could clarify why he refers to her as evil and why he goes on tangents about women in general.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cIn those troublesome dreams he saw Audley Court, rooted up from amidst the green pastures and the shady hedgerows of Essex, standing bare and unprotected upon that desolate northern shore, threatened by the rapid rising of a boisterous sea, whose waves seemed gathering upward to descend and crush the house he loved. As the hurrying … Continue reading Lady Audley’s Sexuality<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5353,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169399],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2503","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\/2503","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\/5353"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2503\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}