Lady Audley's Secret
Lady Audley’s Secret is an exemplary work of the Sensation genre. It provokes debate, and challenges the ideals of the Victorian era by challenging the titular secret; is Lady Audley really mad? In the 19th-century, insanity and madness was defined by the men of medicine to be inherent to the female sex through the "instability of their reproductive system" (Showalter, 1987, p55), such that the natural biological courses of a women’s life weakened her mind and allowed these uncensored repressed symptoms to manifest. However this definition was not confined to the psychological, Susan Bernstein (1997, 82) asserts that the failure to adhere to the set societal standards was tantamount to insanity and that any manifestations of such deviance
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were hence concealed from the orderly members of society for their own protection. While on first impression the novel may seem to depict the simple struggle to vanquish a madwoman and restore order, Mary Elizabeth Braddon can be seen to expose and lampoon the double standards of the Victorian conception of madness to the extent that any of the characters might therefore be pronounced as mad. Thus, Braddon evokes the sensationalism trope of madness in the manner described by Henry James (cited in Hughes, 2002, p82) that allowed the author to blur the boundaries between fiction and the reader’s daily life, lifting the veils of morality to probe at the fragile distinctions between sanity and insanity; morality and immorality; victim and oppressor.
The characterisation of Lady Audley is enigmatic; in one scene she is depicted as the angelic ideal of the Victorian woman, and then at others she morphs into a Mephistophelian villain.
Braddon establishes this conflicting identity through the symbolism of the pre-Raphaelite portrait of Lady Audley. The angelic imagery Braddon achieves through depiction of “feathery masses of ringlets with every glimmer of gold” and “delicate face as to give a lurid lightness to the blonde complexion” is one of beauty that subscribes perfectly to the passive and diminutive Victorian ideal of a woman. Moreover, the use of “gold” emphasises the value placed on the features that contribute to the fulfilment of this idea. Yet, there is an ominous duality to the portrait; something “sinister” captured by the artist. Braddon’s choice of language alludes to a threat, positioning Victorian readers to consider that Lady Audley is not all that she seems, and that the very standards of Victorian womanhood can literally mask ominous intentions. Moreover, as the depiction progresses, this masked deviance emerges overtly through the hellfire imagery of the crimson dress that “hung about her in folds that looked like flames”. It therefore becomes ironic that Lady Audley can conform to the roles of both the villain and the innocent ideal woman, thus linking madness with power in the image of a
woman.
While initially it may seem that Lady Audley’s madness is symbiotic to her criminality, Braddon goes to great lengths to humanise and contextualise her actions as motivated by survival instinct. Facing abandonment and poverty, in such circumstances as these it can be of little wonder that she sought a new life, a fact acknowledged by Robert Audley himself; “We are apt to be angry with this cruel hardness in our life”. The acute irony of her choice is that in inventing her new life and identity, Lady Audley – formerly Helen Talboys –has managed to remake herself in the very ideal of the Victorian woman, and yet, it is for this action that she is condemned as insane. In the midst of this complex web of duality, Braddon inserts a voice of rationality and clarity; Dr Mosgrave proclaims that "The lady is not mad; but she has the hereditary taint in her blood" and that "She has the cunning of madness, with the prudence of intelligence…She is dangerous". This pronouncement cleaves a distinction between madness and danger, dispelling traditional views of insanity and provoking readers to consider that the danger in Lady Audley is not that she is mad but that she can both embody and subvert Victorian ideas at the same time.
Lady Audley is not the only woman to contradict gender roles and therefore perhaps not the only woman who could, by definition, be considered mad. Born into a wealthy family with position in the 19th century provides Alicia Audley with a plethora of marriage prospects, yet she initially defies these norms and gender expectations. She is depicted as a “pretty, gypsy-faced” girl with a “dark complexion” and “heavy, clustering locks” of black hair, and thus constructed as an antithesis to the Victorian woman embodied by Lady Audley; particularly through the contrasting uses of dark and light colours respectively. She is characterised by a love masculine pursuits such as hunting and a mastery of horses that allow her to travel not only beyond the town but beyond the fixed realm of domesticity. Braddon evokes the symbolic imagery of the New Woman who is capable of taming the fields of masculinity to her own use. Moreover, despite the affection and prosperous proposal from Henry Towers, Alicia turns him down, an act that Robert vehemently chastises, denouncing it be the "consequence of letting a girl follow the hounds ... she goes through the world as she goes across the country - straight ahead and over everything". The improperness of Alicia’s refusal is seen to upset the implicit societal agreement of the desirability of marriage as a foundational societal convention, which is further emphasised by the structural metaphor used to delineate Sir Harry Tower’s shock whereby he; “felt that the whole fabric of the future he had built up so complacently was shivered into a heap of dingy ruins". Thus, what Braddon presents in the character of Alicia is someone could theoretically be considered just as mad as Lady Audley by the definitions of Victorian society. However, by the dénouement of the novel, Alicia has accepted the proposal from Henry Towers and assumes the domestic role vacated by Lady Audley. While this can be interpreted as the dominating of the female by patriarchal gender roles, it can also be seen as a paradox. The crux of the distinction between these two women lies in the threat they pose to society; Alicia straddles the boundary between acceptability and impropriety, whereas Lady Audley’s very presence and success in society threatens social constructions, thus, she is dangerous although not clinically mad. With this contrast between the two women of Audley House in mind, Robert’s reaction to Doctor Musgrove’s distinction between insanity and danger reinforces that Lady Audley’s incarceration is less because she might be mad, but because she poses a danger to societal norms.
However, Robert Audley himself is not devoid of gender and social norm contradictions, nor is he entirely free of conventional conceptualisations of madness. Robert is introduced as “the most vacillating and unenergetic of men”, he does not perform the role of a man in contemporary society as he is neither active nor ambitious, and furthermore his employment as a barrister is undertaken with reluctance. Yet as the novel progresses and the mystery deepens, Robert’s masculine traits evolve in parallel to his fixation on the mystery of his friend’s disappearance and the woman at the core. Braddon directly draws attention to this parallel in a description where “He walked on for a few paces revolving this question in his mind, with a darker shadow than the shadows of the gathering winter twilight on his face, and a heavy oppression of mingled sorrow and dread weighing down his heart”. The emphasis on his motion contrasts with the languid man the reader was first introduced to, while the metaphor of the “heavy oppression of mingled sorrow and dread” draws strong similarities with Lady Audley’s description of her own madness. Critiques such as E.S Dallas (Cited in Hughes, 2002, 96) contend that this inconsistency in characterisation is the result of the prioritising of plot over character development that plagues sensation novels. This may be the case, but while it is difficult to speculate on Braddon’s intentions, this duality ought not to be so easily dismissed, particularly given the duality of Lady Audley’s characterisation. This contrast may also lend itself to highlight the patriarchal irony of the consequences of men who perform the definition of madness and women. Moreover, the barrage of ‘mad’ characters can be seen to lampoon the Victorian definition of madness to the effect of drawing a sharp distinction between the everyday madness that pervades all people through the experience of the spectrum of human emotion, and true insanity.
Braddon employs the trope of madness in Lady Audley’s Secret as a societal construction, and through it tears away the layers of anxiety surrounding conformity and rebellion. She highlights the patriarchal contradictions between male and female gender role performance to the point where the Victorian conception of madness becomes utterly ridiculous. By the conclusion of the novel the reader is positioned to conclude that if Lady Audley is to be pronounced as mad, then indeed so may Robert, Alicia, and any other characters who do not perform their Victorian gender roles. This serves to highlight the oppressive constructions of society imposed on both men and women, but also to highlight the fragility of sanity and thus prompts readers to consider “how many minds must tremble upon the narrow boundary between reason and unreason, mad to-day and sane to-morrow, mad yesterday and sane to-day.”
were hence concealed from the orderly members of society for their own protection. While on first impression the novel may seem to depict the simple struggle to vanquish a madwoman and restore order, Mary Elizabeth Braddon can be seen to expose and lampoon the double standards of the Victorian conception of madness to the extent that any of the characters might therefore be pronounced as mad. Thus, Braddon evokes the sensationalism trope of madness in the manner described by Henry James (cited in Hughes, 2002, p82) that allowed the author to blur the boundaries between fiction and the reader’s daily life, lifting the veils of morality to probe at the fragile distinctions between sanity and insanity; morality and immorality; victim and oppressor.
The characterisation of Lady Audley is enigmatic; in one scene she is depicted as the angelic ideal of the Victorian woman, and then at others she morphs into a Mephistophelian villain.
Braddon establishes this conflicting identity through the symbolism of the pre-Raphaelite portrait of Lady Audley. The angelic imagery Braddon achieves through depiction of “feathery masses of ringlets with every glimmer of gold” and “delicate face as to give a lurid lightness to the blonde complexion” is one of beauty that subscribes perfectly to the passive and diminutive Victorian ideal of a woman. Moreover, the use of “gold” emphasises the value placed on the features that contribute to the fulfilment of this idea. Yet, there is an ominous duality to the portrait; something “sinister” captured by the artist. Braddon’s choice of language alludes to a threat, positioning Victorian readers to consider that Lady Audley is not all that she seems, and that the very standards of Victorian womanhood can literally mask ominous intentions. Moreover, as the depiction progresses, this masked deviance emerges overtly through the hellfire imagery of the crimson dress that “hung about her in folds that looked like flames”. It therefore becomes ironic that Lady Audley can conform to the roles of both the villain and the innocent ideal woman, thus linking madness with power in the image of a
woman.
While initially it may seem that Lady Audley’s madness is symbiotic to her criminality, Braddon goes to great lengths to humanise and contextualise her actions as motivated by survival instinct. Facing abandonment and poverty, in such circumstances as these it can be of little wonder that she sought a new life, a fact acknowledged by Robert Audley himself; “We are apt to be angry with this cruel hardness in our life”. The acute irony of her choice is that in inventing her new life and identity, Lady Audley – formerly Helen Talboys –has managed to remake herself in the very ideal of the Victorian woman, and yet, it is for this action that she is condemned as insane. In the midst of this complex web of duality, Braddon inserts a voice of rationality and clarity; Dr Mosgrave proclaims that "The lady is not mad; but she has the hereditary taint in her blood" and that "She has the cunning of madness, with the prudence of intelligence…She is dangerous". This pronouncement cleaves a distinction between madness and danger, dispelling traditional views of insanity and provoking readers to consider that the danger in Lady Audley is not that she is mad but that she can both embody and subvert Victorian ideas at the same time.
Lady Audley is not the only woman to contradict gender roles and therefore perhaps not the only woman who could, by definition, be considered mad. Born into a wealthy family with position in the 19th century provides Alicia Audley with a plethora of marriage prospects, yet she initially defies these norms and gender expectations. She is depicted as a “pretty, gypsy-faced” girl with a “dark complexion” and “heavy, clustering locks” of black hair, and thus constructed as an antithesis to the Victorian woman embodied by Lady Audley; particularly through the contrasting uses of dark and light colours respectively. She is characterised by a love masculine pursuits such as hunting and a mastery of horses that allow her to travel not only beyond the town but beyond the fixed realm of domesticity. Braddon evokes the symbolic imagery of the New Woman who is capable of taming the fields of masculinity to her own use. Moreover, despite the affection and prosperous proposal from Henry Towers, Alicia turns him down, an act that Robert vehemently chastises, denouncing it be the "consequence of letting a girl follow the hounds ... she goes through the world as she goes across the country - straight ahead and over everything". The improperness of Alicia’s refusal is seen to upset the implicit societal agreement of the desirability of marriage as a foundational societal convention, which is further emphasised by the structural metaphor used to delineate Sir Harry Tower’s shock whereby he; “felt that the whole fabric of the future he had built up so complacently was shivered into a heap of dingy ruins". Thus, what Braddon presents in the character of Alicia is someone could theoretically be considered just as mad as Lady Audley by the definitions of Victorian society. However, by the dénouement of the novel, Alicia has accepted the proposal from Henry Towers and assumes the domestic role vacated by Lady Audley. While this can be interpreted as the dominating of the female by patriarchal gender roles, it can also be seen as a paradox. The crux of the distinction between these two women lies in the threat they pose to society; Alicia straddles the boundary between acceptability and impropriety, whereas Lady Audley’s very presence and success in society threatens social constructions, thus, she is dangerous although not clinically mad. With this contrast between the two women of Audley House in mind, Robert’s reaction to Doctor Musgrove’s distinction between insanity and danger reinforces that Lady Audley’s incarceration is less because she might be mad, but because she poses a danger to societal norms.
However, Robert Audley himself is not devoid of gender and social norm contradictions, nor is he entirely free of conventional conceptualisations of madness. Robert is introduced as “the most vacillating and unenergetic of men”, he does not perform the role of a man in contemporary society as he is neither active nor ambitious, and furthermore his employment as a barrister is undertaken with reluctance. Yet as the novel progresses and the mystery deepens, Robert’s masculine traits evolve in parallel to his fixation on the mystery of his friend’s disappearance and the woman at the core. Braddon directly draws attention to this parallel in a description where “He walked on for a few paces revolving this question in his mind, with a darker shadow than the shadows of the gathering winter twilight on his face, and a heavy oppression of mingled sorrow and dread weighing down his heart”. The emphasis on his motion contrasts with the languid man the reader was first introduced to, while the metaphor of the “heavy oppression of mingled sorrow and dread” draws strong similarities with Lady Audley’s description of her own madness. Critiques such as E.S Dallas (Cited in Hughes, 2002, 96) contend that this inconsistency in characterisation is the result of the prioritising of plot over character development that plagues sensation novels. This may be the case, but while it is difficult to speculate on Braddon’s intentions, this duality ought not to be so easily dismissed, particularly given the duality of Lady Audley’s characterisation. This contrast may also lend itself to highlight the patriarchal irony of the consequences of men who perform the definition of madness and women. Moreover, the barrage of ‘mad’ characters can be seen to lampoon the Victorian definition of madness to the effect of drawing a sharp distinction between the everyday madness that pervades all people through the experience of the spectrum of human emotion, and true insanity.
Braddon employs the trope of madness in Lady Audley’s Secret as a societal construction, and through it tears away the layers of anxiety surrounding conformity and rebellion. She highlights the patriarchal contradictions between male and female gender role performance to the point where the Victorian conception of madness becomes utterly ridiculous. By the conclusion of the novel the reader is positioned to conclude that if Lady Audley is to be pronounced as mad, then indeed so may Robert, Alicia, and any other characters who do not perform their Victorian gender roles. This serves to highlight the oppressive constructions of society imposed on both men and women, but also to highlight the fragility of sanity and thus prompts readers to consider “how many minds must tremble upon the narrow boundary between reason and unreason, mad to-day and sane to-morrow, mad yesterday and sane to-day.”