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Victorian gender norms in Lady Audley's Secret
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Robert’s Transformation in Lady Audley’s Secret
Robert Audley plays a major role in Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret. Robert is the nephew of Sir Michael Audley, and the young Lady Audley is his new step-aunt. The novel follows Robert in his quest to uncover the secret surrounding Audley Court and his friend, George Talboys. Within the first half of the novel, the reader watches Robert transform himself from being happy-go-lucky with no cares at all in the world to a man devoted to his mission and thereby becoming a true picture of true Victorian manliness.
When Braddon first introduces Robert to the reader, he is completely relaxed. He has passed the bar and is a lawyer, but he never actually practices law. The big expenditure of his time is concentrated on helping George grieve and recover from the death of his wife, Helen.
After taking George on a trip to Essex where Robert had planned to introduce him to his uncle, Robert becomes a different man. Before Robert gets a chance to make the introductions, George disappears. When he is unable to find h...
As George becomes aware of the situation he begins to ponder what will happen if Lennie gets away. George understands that Lennie would not be capable of providing for himself out in the wild. As George contemplates allowing Lennie to be free of all the men, he “[is] a long time in answering” (94). George is one of the few men who understands Lennie’s mental limitations, he knows Lennie would not remember how to survive and “the poor bastard’d starve” (94). He
Throughout the book, it is shown that Robert has a special connection with animals and the environment. The many animals he encounters throughout the story are symbols which reflect on him and his actions. After Robert accidentally kills the German sniper who spared the life of him and his men, he feels guilty for taking an innocent life. This is reflected in nature by the bird which “sang and sang and sang, till Robert rose and walked away. The sound of it would haunt him to the day he died.” (Findley 131) This scene uses the readers’ knowledge of Robert’s deep emotional connections with animals to emphasize the sadness and guilt that he felt after shooting the German. Robert is often shown as innocent and caring, traits he shares with animals. Rodwell realizes this and draws a picture of Robert in his sketchbook (otherwise full of animal sketches), although “the shading was not quite human” (Findley 138). In the sketch, Rodwell is able to show both the human and non-human side of Robert. Finally, Robert’s strong love for Rowena, his sister, is mainly because of her innocence. As a result of her disability, she is innocent and naïve like a child or animal; she relies on Robert to be “her guardian” (Findley 10)....
The idea of having Robert as his guest makes Bub uncomfortable. He is stubbornly resistant to the notion of having this strange man in his home, doubly so given this particular man’s physical limitations and the shared history with Bub’s wife. Bub has a disjointed understanding
Mary Elizabeth Braddon's "Lady Audley's Secret" was published in 1861 and was a big success: a best-seller that sold over one million copies in book form. The protagonist, Helen Maldon - also known as Helen Talboys, Lucy Graham and Lady Audley - is a poor young beautiful woman when she marries the dragoon George Talboys, but his money only lasts for one year of luxury. When he no longer is able to offer her the life she always wanted - and now has got used to - she becomes angry and depressed, and George Talboys leaves the country to dig for gold in order to make his young wife with her new-born baby happy again. Not long after her husband has sailed for Australia, Helen Talboys decides she has had enough of the boring life she leads with her father and child and wants to try to find for herself the things she lacks. She sees an opportunity to start over and she grabs it: she leaves her child, changes her name and goes out as a governess. When the wealthy Sir Michael Audley proposes, she accepts and goes from the life as governess to the life of a Lady. The Lady Audley that we get to know is a woman who is sure of what she wants and will not let anyone stop her, which in the book is described as the acts of a madwoman. But is Lady Audley really insane or simply too ambitious and sure of herself for the Victorian era? Was "insanity" simply the label society attached to female assertion, ambition, self-interest and outrage?
...interracial relationships. However because of the way he acts when he hears about the two of them, it is obvious that he has led a sheltered life. But even after his entire life of not understanding what was going on in the world around him, one night with Robert enlightened him and changed his view on people and his surrounding environment.
The narrator’s prejudice makes him emotionally blind. His inability to see past Robert’s disability stops him from seeing the reality of any relationship or person in the story. And while he admits some things are simply beyond his understanding, he is unaware he is so completely blind to the reality of the world.
Coming from the city, George has personality issues because of his non-existent family background. As a young child, his prostitute mother abandoned him to be raised by the state in the Wallace P. Andrews Shelter for Boys. George explains to Cocoa how the shelter treated him as though there were nothing out of the ordinary about a home without love in it. “They may not have been loving people, [Mrs. Jackson] and Chip–or when you think about it, even lovable. But they were devoted to their job if not to us individually” (Naylor 23).
Clearly, his study shows that prescription drug abuse among teens has risen a lot, and is becoming a bigger problem than it once was. In fact, each day, over 1,000 teenagers start abusing prescription medication (3). Although personally I have not met anyone who has ever abused prescription drugs, the problem is prevalent and should not be ignored.
...ry there are many instances in which the narrator seems to dislike Robert, in which case it is because he is “blind”. Not only is he blinded in the way that he cannot understand Robert, but it leads him to believe that Robert is not human at all because of his disability that he possess. The narrator develops with the aid of Robert, to see Robert as an actual human being. Raymond Carver gives the narrator a transformation through characterization as well as the aid of Robert to show his development and progression throughout the story.
Steinbeck describes George as a “small, quick, darked face man with restless eyes” (2). As a reader, you soon, then learn that George
Secrets are the integral driving force behind the plot of George Elliot’s Middlemarch. From the first paragraph when a young girl and her brother try to leave to save the world, to when Rosamond tries to sabotage Dorothea and Will, secrets abound. The time period Middlemarch was written about seems to be fraught with the keeping of secrets. The idea of wives keeping secrets from their husbands, husbands from their wives, parents from children, and vice versa is not a foreign thought, but the amount of surreptitiousness is astounding. Secrets drive every decision made in the town of Middlemarch. Dorothea keeps the truth from Casaubon about the reason she married him. Rosamond keeps the secret that she only married Lydgate to get away from Middlemarch, while Lydgate hides most of his past, as well as massive amounts of debt from all he knows.
Robert Ross’ whole life he grew up in a household where they did what was expected of them, rather than what was right. The type of people that Findley place in Robert’s life is what molds him into the type of character he becomes. Timothy Findley manipulates what a hero is supposed to be, by making Robert Ross a distorted kind of hero. Robert Ross exemplifies anti-heroism throughout the text because of his need to be a savior but inability to do so, his morals and his connection with animals.
Using Caroline Bingley as a foil to Elizabeth, Austen critiques the aspirations and achievements that are traditionally considered to be of value to women. Caroline’s outlook regarding what makes women accomplished finds resonance with James Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women (1766). These stereotypical regency-era ideals encourage ‘instruction in the fine arts’ (Fordyce, 127), including the study of embroidery, drawing, music and dance and completely discount the value of academic achievements. In contrast, Elizabeth is deeply interested in intellectual pursuits yet has not received a typical female education with ‘steady and regular instruction’ (Austen, 161) administered by a governess. Although Austen contrasts these two methods of education,
Aubery Tanqueray, a self-made man, is a Widower at the age of Forty two with a beautiful teenage daughter, Ellean whom he seems very protective over. His deceased wife, the first Mrs. Tanqueray was "an iceberg," stiff, and assertive, alive as well as dead (13). She had ironically died of a fever "the only warmth, I believe, that ever came to that woman's body" (14). Now alone because his daughter is away at a nunnery he's found someone that can add a little life to his elite, high class existence; a little someone, we learn, that has a past that doesn't quite fit in with the rest of his friends.
And from time to time, Robert does exhibit some outstanding qualities of character which have earned the respect of so many of us gathered here today. He is generous to a fault – especially if it’s his own. He is exceptionally modest – although he has plenty to be modest about (or at least he did until Pamela became his girlfriend). And he is a man who always sticks by his convictions - he will remain in the wrong no matter how much he gets ridiculed for it.