{"id":75,"date":"2016-02-03T20:02:29","date_gmt":"2016-02-03T20:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/?p=75"},"modified":"2016-02-03T20:02:29","modified_gmt":"2016-02-03T20:02:29","slug":"there-was-not-much-in-it-neither-gold-nor-gems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2016\/02\/03\/there-was-not-much-in-it-neither-gold-nor-gems\/","title":{"rendered":"There was not much in it; neither gold nor gems…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere was not much in it; neither gold nor gems; only a baby\u2019s little worsted shoe, rolled up in a piece of paper, and a tiny lock of pale and silky yellow hair, evidently taken from a baby\u2019s head.\u201d (32)<\/span><\/p>\n

One thing that immediately comes across is how unusual the content of Lady Audley\u2019s secret drawer is. Kept hidden away in this drawer, \u201clined with purple velvet,\u201d is a child\u2019s \u201clittle worsted shoe\u201d and a lock of \u201cpale and silky yellow hair\u201d (32). The fact that Lady Audley hides both of these items reveals two important ideas: 1. Lady Audley likely has memories associated with these items, which is why she wishes to preserve them. 2. The fact that she finds these items significant, but does not keep them preserved in a visible space, indicates that there\u2019s a reason for that. Given the usage of \u201clittle\u201d and tiny\u201d in this passage to describe the baby\u2019s remnants, the child must have been\u00a0very young. Additionally, the secrecy of these items leads me to believe that Lady Audley may have had a first born before her marriage to Sir Michael Audley. <\/span><\/p>\n

By\u00a0ending the chapter on Phoebe’s and Luke’s discovery, I believe Braddon is foretelling what will come later in the novel: confusion over Lady Audley\u2019s early life. While I believe this is one aspect of this passage, there may\u00a0be another layer to it. Mary Elizabeth Braddon could have included this to combat gender roles at the time, which suggested\u00a0women follow\u00a0a prudent life before marriage. The prospect of Lady Audley having a child runs against this stereotype of women. At other points in the book, Braddon has described Lady Audley as a \u201cfragile figure\u201d and \u201cas girlish as if she had but just left the nursery\u201d (50). The image depicted here is a complete 180 from the Lady Audley whose past is eluded to by the drawer lined with purple velvet. In this way, I believe the author includes these depictions to tear them down later on in the book. If the readings to this point have hinted at anything, Lady Audley\u2019s Secret could be one that challenges Victorian notions of femininity. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere was not much in it; neither gold nor gems; only a baby\u2019s little worsted shoe, rolled up in a piece of paper, and a tiny lock of pale and silky yellow hair, evidently taken from a baby\u2019s head.\u201d (32) One thing that immediately comes across is how unusual the content of Lady Audley\u2019s secret … Continue reading There was not much in it; neither gold nor gems…<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1818,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123782],"tags":[1079,2471,123784,123783,123785,123786],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-blog-post","tag-femininity","tag-gender-roles","tag-lady-audley","tag-lady-audleys-secret","tag-mary-elizabeth-braddon","tag-victorian-literature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","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\/1818"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}