Lady Audley's Unconscious Mind

Even though Lady Audley attempts to solidify her role in society as a wife, her unconscious mind, the id, is greatly influenced and altered by her childhood-rooted feelings of jealousy and lower standing. She experiences momentary mental instability, not insanity, while striving for a better life than the one she is dealt. Although she experiences intervals of what could be considered possible insanity, such as when “she was obliged to place the flaming tallow candle very close to the lace furbelows” (Braddon 276), Lady Audley does not consciously leave the candle near the furbelows to start the fire, which is conveyed with the use of the word obliged. She experiences a temporary loss of control, where the id takes over because she is frightened

This continuous desire for more has upset the balance in Lady Audley’s mind as she is trying to preserve her future and secrets. Freud addresses the fact that “an idea can be sufficiently intense to provoke a lively motor act…and at the same time not intense enough to become conscious” (Freud 1936, 223) which materializes in Lady Audley due to her upbringing. Another instance where Lady Audley’s id is present is when she speaks to Phoebe saying “in a cold, hard voice ‘Get up, fool, idiot, coward!” (Braddon 278) as if Lady Audley is no longer the temperate woman that she has presented herself to be. There is a direct representation of the id in her looks and voice because she is no longer the angel, but a devil that demands to satisfy her desire for wealth that is established through her jealousy. The feelings she experiences as a child satisfies “the rule for the emotional disturbance…to precede the appearance of the somatic symptom or to follow it immediately” (Freud 1936, 224) which materializes in Lady Audley as she speaks and commits crimes in order to ensure the secrecy of her

As Lady Audley is examined, the doctor finds “no evidence of madness in anything that she has done” (Braddon 321) because all of Lady Audley’s actions in her life have been for a reason. Freud states that “when an idea immediately produces lively somatic consequences, this implies that…it flows off into the paths concerned in these consequences” (Freud 1936, 224), explaining that it is the ego of Lady Audley that is weighing her options of how to gain the status and wealth that she yearns for. Lady Audley’s upbringing has changed her ego into a cunning and calculating machine because her constant desires have impacted her decision-making process. She employs the challenges she has experienced and channels them into intelligence and ways that can advance her in society. She finds a happy medium within her superego and id by having “the cunning of madness, with the prudence of intelligence” (Braddon 323), which symbolizes her ego throughout the story. As a woman with this ability, “she is dangerous” (Braddon 323) because no other woman has presented these qualities, meaning it would be harmful to the power and control of men. Even though “there is a splitting of the mind into two