Stereotypes Of Women In Lady Audley's Secret

Women are thought of as children, specifically “girls”, juxtaposed in conjunction with nature’s beauty, mythicized as unique beings illuminated with magic and deceit, and overall needy materialistic creatures. Such common stereotypes of women are portrayed in Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret through the character, Lady Audley, who emanates child-like qualities and thought processes, but actually shares the same calculative logic as a male counterpart would stereotypically “have”. Throughout the novel, the narrator (Braddon), often describes Lady Audley in a magical manner, highlighting her physical characteristics by using vivid and bright colors and often comparing Lady Audley to the physical environment, whether it be explicitly,
such as comparing her eyes to the clear, blue sky, or implicitly through a painting seen earlier in the novel. However it may be, it is clear that the narrator and other characters in the novel see Lady Audley as an innocent girl. The title would guide that this novel would be written in the voice of Lady Audley, but it is clear that it is narrated by someone else who follows Robert Audley closer than they do Lady Audley, which is why the passage in Volume II Chapter III “Phoebe’s Petition” provides a unique new perspective to the novel. This is perhaps one of the first and only passages in the novel that follows Lady Audley’s train of thought. Immediately, the passage begins with Lady Audley’s clear blue eyes fixated on a crimson fire that is burning.
Her mood, brooding, is reflected in her thoughts as she considers what she would be feeling if she were younger and full of “childish innocence, childish follies and selfishnesses, or frivolous feminine sins that had weighed very lightly upon her conscience”, which evokes a sense of confusion to the reader who may have previously associated her as childish, but with evil intent, as we assume she has murdered her former husband. Up until now, we have regarded Lady Audley as a girl, but here we finally can see her capabilities as a woman. However, her thoughts go into further complexity. Even though in this passage she is also considering when she “first looked in the glass and discovered that she was beautiful”, something that she would also now consider “a counter-balance of every youthful sin”, but then thinks about her adult sins, of how her recognition of her own beauty has changed her to become “selfish and cruel, indifferent to the joys and sorrows of others, cold-hearted […] with that petty woman’s tyranny which is the worst of despotisms”. Her despotism, meaning absolute power or control; rigid restraint, could refer to her control over Michael Audley, and truly anyone else in the novel. For example, Robert Audley suspects she is guilty with murder of his best friend, but still treads carefully out of kindness, to protect and shield her from potential dangers
and from exposing her and the crime she has committed. We see from this passage she knows and understands her incapability of caring for others. She thinks this lack of empathy is due to her realization of her own beauty, but she utilizes this beauty for her own benefit and manipulates others. Beauty is an ability.
Since Lady Audley recognizes this ability of hers, she takes advantage of it and uses it to master others and manipulate the situation to favor her circumstances.