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Ashley Irwin

Dr. Michelle Elleray

ENGL 6803

11 August 2014

Lady Castrator and the Fallible Phallus: Castration and Disavowal in Lady Audley’s Secret

John Ruskin, in his lecture delivered at the Town Hall in Manchester in 1864, clearly

articulates the gender roles and duties expected for each sex in Victorian England. He says,

The man’s power is active, progressive, defensive. He is eminently the doer, the creator, the discoverer, the defender. His intellect is for speculation and invention; his energy for adventure, for war, and for conquest, wherever [it] is just, wherever conquest necessary. But the woman’s power is not for rule, not for battle,—and her intellect is not for invention or creation, but for sweet ordering, arrangement, and decision. She sees the qualities of things, their claims, and their places […] By her office, and place, she is protected from all danger and temptation. The man, in his rough work in [the] open world, must encounter all peril and trial: to him, therefore, must be the failure, the offense, the inevitable error: often he must be wounded, or subdued; often misled; and always hardened. But he guards the woman from all this; within his house, as ruled by her, unless she herself has sought it, need enter no danger, no temptation, no cause of error or offense. (Ruskin)

Here, Ruskin posits that a man must exert his power beyond the confines of the home. He must

employ his rational mind in action, subjecting himself to the outside world, characterized by

“danger and temptation” (Ruskin). Whereas man is permitted to err, woman must not be given

this opportunity for she is not endowed with the resilience needed to recover from “failure”

(Ruskin). Her power is better suited to domestic duties, to ordering, arranging, and deciding, all

that is necessary to ensure that the home is a place of peace. For Ruskin, the maintenance of

these roles, and the fulfilment of these duties is essential to retaining the order of Victorian

society, and if these roles and duties should be reversed, chaos is the logical result.

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What we see in Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s 1862 novel, Lady Audley’s Secret is a

subversion of Ruskin’s harmonious view of gendered life. We are presented with a world of

inadequate men unable to ensure that women remain protected within the home. We meet

George Talboys, a man unable to provide for his wife and child who resolves to abandon his

family in an attempt to acquire a fortune. We are introduced to Robert Audley, a failed barrister

who prefers a life of leisure over a life of action. We encounter an aged aristocrat who is

completely at the mercy of his wife and daughter. Finally, we meet a woman fed up with male

inadequacy who is forced to adopt a life of action in order to create her own security. In this

novel, we see a great need for men to supress the mobility of women in order to create for

themselves a semblance of superiority, which is nevertheless undermined by the power of

women to illuminate male folly. In other words, what we see in Lady Audley’s Secret is an

argument about the threatening nature of woman, and her ability to shake the foundations of the

patriarchal order. This paper seeks to uncover the feminine threat, and lay it bare in all its

terrifying majesty. In order to achieve such a task, I will examine the character of Lady Audley

(a.k.a. Lucy Graham, Helen Talboys, and Helen Maldon) and will argue that her ability to evoke

castration anxiety in men is the source of her terrifying nature. I will present the lady as a figure

of horror through the invocation of Julia Kristeva’s conception of the composite. My argument

will demonstrate that the construction of femininity, or the representation of woman as passive,

and subservient, beautiful and angelic, serves to safeguard the beloved phallus against the threat

of castration, and that when anger ultimately shatters the ideal of womanhood, confinement by

way of institutionalization is the only way to protect the male against phallic loss.

Fear of the Feminine

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In order to articulate the extent to which woman proves to be an overwhelming source of

anxiety for man, we must examine the figure of Robert Audley who demonstrates a significant

aversion to members of the opposite sex. The narrator observes,

that a shiver of horror, something akin to fear, chilled him to the heart, as he remembered the terrible things done by women, since that day upon which Eve was created to be Adam’s companion and help-meet in the Garden of Eden. (Braddon 306)

Here, Robert’s fear of woman is connected to her ability to shake the foundations of the

patriarchal order. This is demonstrated through the invocation of Eve who disrupts order

through the pursuit of her desires. The extent of woman’s power is illuminated in the “shiver of

horror” that Robert experiences as he contemplates the threatening nature of the opposite sex

(306).

Robert Audley’s fear of woman is also exemplified in a passage following his cousin

Alicia’s condemnation of his laziness. He says of her expression of rage,

That’s the consequence of letting a girl follow the hounds. She learns to look at everything in life as she does at six feet of timber or a sunken fence; she goes through the world as she goes across the country – straight ahead and over everything. (133)

The “consequence” of letting women pursue masculine endeavours is a loss of the innocence of

femininity (133). Alicia adopts the masculine attitude of persistence, ambition and assertion,

exerting her power beyond the gates of Audley Court. Her ability to speak her mind renders

Robert’s generalized inadequacy visible which results in emasculation. He goes on to say,

If I ever marry, and have daughters (which remote contingency mayheaven forefend!) they shall be educated in Paper Buildings, take their sole exercise in Temple Gardens, and they shall never go beyond the gates till they are marriageable, when I will walk them straight acrossFleet Street to St. Dunstan’s Church and deliver them into the hands of their husbands. (133)

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Here, the young man shows a strong aversion to woman in his plea to heaven. If his attempt to

distance himself from the threatening sex fails, he will educate his daughters in “Paper

Buildings” or synthetic institutions designed to prevent any sort of learning that may further their

ambitions (133). He will also be sure to confine them in such a way that does not afford them

the autonomy that has been allotted to Alicia precisely because a woman with agency and

ambition has the ability to threaten patriarchal dominance. Instead, he refuses to release them

until they are safe and secure in the hands of other worthy men.

Audley’s rage against women reaches its pinnacle when he thinks, “I hate women […]

They’re bold, brazen and abominable creatures invented for the annoyance and destruction of

their superiors” (233). We must question the superiority of man when we consider woman’s

ability to destroy him. Robert Audley’s aversion, dislike, and overall disinterest in women

positions him as the perfect individual to pursue and expose Lady Audley as a bigamist,

murderess, and arsonist. His intense fear and anguish both enable him to see through Lady

Audley’s mask of innocence, and motivate him to expose her as the monstrous figure she is. In

order to provide a psychoanalytic explanation for Lady Audley’s monstrosity we must turn to

Sigmund Freud’s castration complex.

Castration

In “Dissolution of the Oedipus Complex,” Freud articulates the castration complex, and

its effects on young boys. Threats of castration, often uttered from the mouth of a scolding

parent, initially have no effect on the mischievous and masturbatory boy until he perceives the

female genitals for the first time. Staring at the great feminine lack the boy begins to realize the

precarious state of his own highly valued member. Unable to comprehend sex difference, the boy

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attributes a penis to each and every individual, and interprets the other’s deprivation as a result of

a punitive severance (191). Describing a young boy’s reaction to the woman’s lack Freud writes,

No this cannot be true, because if women have been castrated, then his own penis is in danger, and the piece of narcissism, with which nature providently equips this very organ, recoils at the thought. (“Fetishism” 91)

The “piece of narcissism” is the great significance attached to the male genitals (91). It is the

locus of phallic power (91). The castration complex illuminates the way woman possesses the

ability to threaten phallic power, making her a source of trauma for her masculine counterpart.

Three instances in Lady Audley’s Secret clearly dramatize this threatening ability and render

visible what Slavoj Žižek would term woman’s “traumatic dimension”1 (“Courtly Love” 151).

The first instance warranting analysis is Robert Audley’s and George Talboys’ encounter

with Lady Audley’s portrait. The portrait is concealed within Lady Audley’s locked apartments.

Alicia informs the men that they may gain access to the apartments through a secret passageway

beneath the floor:

If you don’t mind crawling upon your hands and knees, you can see my lady’s apartments, for that very passage communicates with her dressing room […] You must let yourself down by your hands into the passage, which is about four feet high; stoop your head […] you will find a short ladder below a trap door like this, which is only covered by a square Persian carpet that you can easily manage to rise. (Braddon 77)

In The Improper Feminine, Lyn Pykett argues that the men’s entry into the apartments has “clear

sexual overtones, and the scene is presented as a stealthy and illicit masculine invasion of the

feminine domain” (91). What is missing from Pykett’s analysis is the way in which this

“invasion” occurs (91). Robert and George must access the portrait from “below” (Braddon 77).

They must crawl upon their “hands and knees” as if they are children determined to get a

1 Woman’s traumatic dimension is precisely her ability to evoke castration anxiety in man.

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glimpse of the female genitals (77). Once in the apartments, the men find themselves in the

lady’s dressing room, which is littered with discarded clothing as if a nude female lurks nearby.

Of course a portrait is found, as opposed to a nude female. However, the portrait, as we will

soon see, generates a shock similar to that which is provoked by the initial perception of the

female lack.

Before turning towards George’s reaction, we must first consider the manner in which the

portrait is painted in order to understand just what it is that he perceives. It is painted in the

tradition of the Pre-Raphaelites, a brotherhood established in London in 1857. This brotherhood

consisted of artists such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, and John Everett

Millais all of whom shared an affinity for depicting images of “the ‘fallen’ woman” and

employed “highly detailed realism” to accentuate “truth” over “beauty” (Auger 7). Emily E.

Auger aptly interprets Lady Audley’s portrait as simultaneously and paradoxically depicting both

the “projections of male fantasy” as well as encapsulating the “paranoia about ambitious,

deceptive, and therefore dangerous woman” (8-9). But many critics, including Auger and Pykett,

choose to focus on the “male fantasy” as represented in the “beauty,” while neglecting the

“truth” of Lady Audley’s “ambitious, deceptive, and therefore dangerous nature” (7). Lady

Audley’s traumatic component is reflected in the “pouting mouth” that contributes to her

“wicked look” (80). The painter, clearly inspired by “medieval monstrosities,” gives the lady the

look of a “beautiful fiend” with a “sinister light” reflected in the “deep blue eyes” (80). I refer to

these negative characteristics as “truths” precisely because they attest to the threat that

transgressive women pose to men. The portrait destabilizes George’s phallic power and his

claim to patriarchal dominance insofar as it provides evidence that his supposedly late wife,

Helen Talboys, has feigned her own death in order to become Lucy Audley. In doing so, she

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proves to be an agent capable of social climbing, while exposing George’s failed masculine duty

to provide for his family. It is significant that George responds to this proof as a young boy may

respond to the initial perception of the feminine lack. He stares “blankly at the canvas,” for a

significant amount of time, “without uttering a word,” and with “his left arm hanging loosely at

his side” (80). George’s blank stare and silence is indicative of his shock, whereas his limp arm

indicates a loss of phallic power similar to impotence. Here, we are presented with the link

between the gaze and castration. The one who does the looking is in a sense “master.”

However, through the act of looking, the gazer becomes impotent insofar as he is rendered

passive (Looking Awry 72). The encounter with the portrait is a symbolic castration where the

female ability to provoke male anxiety is illuminated.

A much more explicit example of woman’s “traumatic dimension” can be seen in George

Talboys’ near fatal encounter with the well (“Courtly Love” 151). George confronts his wife

regarding her feigned death, and subsequent marriage to Sir Michael Audley. Lady Audley, in

an attempt to keep her bigamy a secret, pushes George into a well that is described in clearly

vaginal terms. The landscape of Audley Court features a,

stagnant well, which cool, and sheltered as all else in the old place, hid itself away in the shrubbery behind

the gardens, with an idle handle that was never turned,and a lazy rope so rotten that the pail had broken awayfrom it. (Braddon 4)

The use of “stagnant” signifies an absence of masculine vitality, and the cavernous “well” recalls

the female genitals (4). The “rope” may be read as a phallic symbol, and its “rotten” state

signifies its precarity (4). Elsewhere, the well is described as possessing a “black, broken

mouth” (120). “Black” stands for lack, whereas “broken” pertains to the male child’s fancy that

the woman’s phallic deprivation is a result of castration (120). The imagery of castration is

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present in the narrator’s observation that the well’s “iron spindle had been dragged from its

socket, and lay a few paces” away (306). The use of “iron” refers to the phallic power often

associated with the male organ (306). Its detachment from the mechanism suggests that phallic

power may be violently snatched away from the possessor of the penis, as it was by Lady Audley

who “drew the loose spindle from the shrunken wood” to send her “first husband with one

horrible cry to the bottom of the well” (441). It is no wonder that George emerges from this well

with a broken appendage of his own. He suffers a broken arm from the fall.

A final scene that dramatizes woman’s “traumatic dimension” is Luke Mark’s encounter

with Lady Audley on the night that she decides to burn down his public house in an attempt to

kill Robert Audley (“Courtly Love” 151). As Lady Audley’s former maid Phoebe approaches

the drunken brute, he snatches “the [fire] poker from between the bars” and makes “a half-

threatening motion” directed at her (358). As Andrew Mangham accurately observes, Luke’s

poker is very clearly a “phallic metaphor” (89). When Phoebe informs him that Lady Audley is

on his property, “the poker dropped from the landlord’s hand, and fell clattering amongst the

cinders on the hearth” (Braddon 359). Once again, we see how the threatening presence of

woman jeopardizes the phallus. As Mangham argues, the dropped poker prefigures the way in

which “Luke’s masculine threat will be annihilated by Lady Audley’s use of fire” (89).

Mangham also observes that Luke’s death by fire is foreshadowed in the description of the

public house narrated just moments before Lady Audley approaches him. He adds that the

“broken weathercock” and “unshapely chimneys” attest to the fragility of the phallus, and it is no

wonder that the Castle Inn is described as a “frail erection” (Braddon 357).

The Composite

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With the representation of Lady Audley as castrator now established, we may solidify

her as a figure of horror with a discussion of her character in relation to Julia Kristeva’s notion of

the composite. The composite is “The traitor, the liar, the criminal with the good conscience, the

shameless rapist, the killer who claims he is a saviour…a friend who stabs you” (Kristeva 4).

Kristeva evokes an image of a Holocaust museum in order to provide an example of how the

composite functions. She writes,

In the dark halls of the museum that is now what remains of Auschwitz, I see a heap of children's shoes, or something like that, something I have

already seen elsewhere, under a Christmas tree, for instance, dolls I believe (4).

The horror of the composite, and by extension, the Holocaust museum is that the horror (the

millions of people exterminated under Nazi reign) exists alongside the semblance of innocence

(an image of Christmas day). Lady Audley is a composite figure insofar as her “traumatic

dimension” exists alongside her apparent innocence (“Courtly Love” 151). The narrator

introduces us to the lady by stating that,

Wherever she went she seemed to take joy and brightness […] She would sit for a quarter of an hour talking to some old woman, and apparently as pleased with the admiration of a toothless crone as if she had been listening to the compliments of a marquis. (Braddon 8)

Here, Lady Audley appears to us as the embodiment of feminine perfection. She is the self-

sacrificing angel, graciously bestowing her kindness upon the unfortunate. Lady Audley is

simultaneously the demon, the bigamist who abandons her husband and son, the homicidal

arsonist who endangers the lives of all who cross her, and a powerful castrator who defies

patriarchal authority. Too horrific in her reality, the lady must be rid of her threatening nature

through means of disavowal. Her threatening nature is denied through idealization, and

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dehumanization. The argument that Lady Audley constitutes a composite figure is corroborated

by Robert’s claim that her “youth […] beauty, and [her] grace, only make the horrible secret of

[her] life more horrible” (304). Here, the semblance of innocence accentuates the horror evoked

by Lady Audley’s malicious actions.

The Mirror

With the threatening nature of woman now established, we must consider the ways in

which man attempts to ward off the danger of castration. As Juliet Mitchell argues, the horror

generated from the sight of the female genitals is far “too great for some to recognize so they

disavow the sight of their own eyes or ears if someone is trying to tell them about it” (85). Lady

Audley’s ability to render male inadequacy visible is actively disavowed by the male characters

in Braddon’s novel, in three distinct ways. The first defence mechanism is the projection of

idealized femininity attributed to woman by man which enables him to render the lady’s

“traumatic dimension” invisible (“Courtly Love” 151). The second means of disavowal seeks to

banish her to an otherworldly realm which gives her the semblance of the incarnation of either

divinity or evil. What we see in the first and second strategy is the great need for the composite

to be broken apart; the lady cannot exist as both innocent and monstrous. Instead, she must be

one or the other. In either case, the lady functions as a “mirror” onto which man “projects his

narcissistic ideal” (152). The third and final strategy is to turn away from the lady in order to

shield one’s eyes from her threatening reality. In the first means of disavowal, Lady Audley’s

threat is denied while adorned in the cloak of femininity. She is described as wearing a,

narrow black ribbon round her neck with a locket or a cross or a miniature, perhaps, attached to it; but whatever the trinket was, she always kept it hidden under her dress. (Braddon 12)

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Here, Lady Audley’s “trinket” is indeed a threat insofar as it is provides irrefutable evidence of

her bigamy, and promiscuous sexuality (12). The “trinket” is a ring given to her by her former

husband George Talboys (12). Just as the vagina is concealed beneath an article of clothing,

Lady Audley’s “trinket” is “hidden beneath her dress” (12).

Robert Audley, who has begun to suspect Lady Audley’s involvement in the

disappearance of his dear friend George Talboys, notes the way in which the tropes of idealized

femininity mask Lady Audley’s threat. He resolves to “go straight to the arch conspirator, and

[…] tear away the beautiful veil under which she hides her wickedness” (284). Lady Audley’s

“veil” is her “amiable and gentle nature,” paired with “her grace, her beauty and her kindness”

(284, 8). Robert does fear that the exposure of Lady Audley’s threat may not be enough to

persuade Sir Michael that she is not who she appears to be. Robert notes that “the mask that she

wears is not to be plucked away. My uncle would rather think me mad than believe her guilty”

(308). Here, Lady Audley’s threat is shrouded in the desires of man.

Disavowal is also achieved through means of infantilization which seeks to reduce the

feminine threat by attributing innocence to the lady. Sir Michael Audley reduces his wife to

childishness in order to deny her the agency and intelligence needed to deceive her husband,

assuming a paternal role over his wife, as this is evident on the night of the storm. Lady Audley

confesses that she is terribly afraid of lightening, and her husband spends the night at her

bedside. In the morning he says that he had hardy recognized his “little wife in that ghastly

terrified, agonized looking creature crying out about the storm” (87). Readers realize that it is

not the literal storm that Lady Audley fears, but the metaphorical one. With the return of George

Talboys, the lady fears that a storm is about to disturb the peaceful life that she has built for

herself at Audley Court. Sir Michael, however, interprets her fear as a manifestation of her

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childishness. By assuming the role of the parent in his relationship with his wife, Sir Michael

positions himself as her protector, superior in his mastery over a helpless child, a figure who has

successfully disavowed the threat of castration, and whose present consciousness is spared from

horror. This paternal mastery is again present in Sir Michael as he gazes upon “his beautiful

wife [with] the smile of an all-indulgent father who look[s] admiringly at his favourite child”

(347). Sir Michael Audley avoids perceiving his wife’s threatening nature by reducing her to a

childlike state of innocence. Lady Audley constructs an elaborate story that would enable her to

avoid meeting her first husband at Audley Court. She pretends that she has been called to

London to visit her former school mistress on her death bed, and leads her husband to an

incorrect address. Upon her return, Sir Michael notes that he is “glad to see” his “poor little

woman in her usual good spirits” (98). By referring to his wife as a “poor little woman,” Sir

Michael positions Lady Audley as a helpless, and innocent creature, and is therefore able to blind

himself to his wife’s malicious scheming (98).

The narrator also resorts to diminishing the lady, saying,

Her fragile figure, which she loved to dress in heavy velvets and stiff rustling silks, till she looked like a child tricked out for a masquerade, was as girlish as if she just left the nursery. All her amusements were childish. (60)

Lady Audley’s “frail figure” could in no way pose a threat to man (60). A little girl who “just

left the nursery” could not be capable of murder (60). A person who occupies herself with

“childish” amusements would clearly not have the intelligence to deceive many great men (60).

Lady Audley is referred to as a “childish, helpless, babyfied little creature” when she attempts to

rid herself of Robert Audley who is investigating the disappearance of George Talboys (156).

The reduction to the state of infancy pushes Lady Audley back in time to a helpless and

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dependent stage of existence. The infantilization of woman is but an attempt to secure her as a

passive being.

Descriptions of Lady Audley’s beauty reduce her to insubstantiality which enables the

denial of her status as potential castrator. She is often described as a fragmented entity lacking

the unifying substance that would cause her to be regarded as a human being. Before confessing

his love to Lucy Graham, soon to be Lady Audley, Sir Michael contemplates her,

soft and melting blue eyes; the graceful beauty of that slender throat and drooping head, with its wealth of showering flaxen curls; the low music of that gentle voice; the perfect harmony which pervaded every charm. (9)

Her “soft and melting blue eyes” seem to be floating in space as if they are unconnected to the

face, and her “slender throat” paired with her “drooping head” may belong to some sort of

mechanical doll (9). The “showering flaxen curls” may be perceived through the plate glass of a

wig shop, while the “low music” may be emanating through a music box as this “perfect

harmony” doubtfully belongs to a fallible human being (9). Lacan notes that “The lady [of

courtly love poetry] is never characterized for any of her real, concrete virtues, for her wisdom,

or even her competence” and is instead addressed as an inhuman abstraction (Lacan 149). Slavoj

Žižek observes a similarity between the reverence of the lady and the femme fatale, both serving

as traumatic members of the opposite sex capable of bringing ruin to their pursuers whether they

be attempting to court or persecute (“Courtly Love” 164). In Lady Audley’s Secret, the

abstraction of the femme fatale is achieved through the representation of Lady Audley’s

fragmentation. She very literally becomes das Ding, the thing or “that ultimate object of our

desires in its unbearable intensity and impenetrability” through the descriptions that render her

inanimate, and her affiliation with material objects (“How to Read Lacan” 43).

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Lady Audley’s status of das Ding reduces her to a life of inaction, which in turn, robs her

of efficacy. Alicia, Lady Audley’s stepdaughter, refers to her stepmother as “a wax dollish

young person” (Braddon 39). Alicia also criticizes her cousin for admiring “wax dolls” whose

ideal of beauty can only be “found in a toy shop” (64). In her apparent status as thing, Lady

Audley lacks the animation necessary to impact the world around her. Miss Tonks insists that

Lady Audley, then known as Lucy Graham, is “only ornamental; a person to be shown off to

visitors” (265). The description of Lady Audley as “ornamental” cancels out her status as human

(265). Like an expensive piece of furniture, she is a thing to be admired. Lady Audley is

reduced to the status of inanimate as an attempt to deny her the ability and the agency to pose a

serious threat to man. Like the lady in courtly love poetry, she functions as an “‘inhuman

partner’ with whom no relationship is possible,’” even as her idealization depicts her as the

perfect partner (“Courtly Love” 151). Robert Audley also compares Lady Audley to a thing

when he refers to her as a “graceful automaton for the display of milliners’ manufacture”

(Braddon 277). Here, Lady Audley takes the shape of a self-operating machine, manufactured

by men to sell adornments to women. In Robert’s view, she functions solely as a spectacle, a

commodity drawing the objectifying gaze.

Objectification continues through the lady’s description as “statuesque” (349). She is

described as possessing a “statuesque attitude” and a “statue-like immobility” (349). Her

comparison to Lot’s wife in this moment of immobility attests to Lady Audley’s defiance of

religious and patriarchal law, as she refuses to be the submissive and obedient wife. But like a

statue, Lady Audley is represented merely as a semblance of a human being, an object of

admiration, one incapable of threatening patriarchal society. Whether she is “wax dollish” or

“statuesque,” Lady Audley is robbed of her efficacy (39, 349). She is but a thing, incapable of

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agency. The narrator also emphasizes Lady Audley’s status as thing as Luke explores her

jewelry casket. Focalized through Luke’s perspective, the narrator notes how, “He uttered a cry

of wonder when he saw the ornaments glittering on white satin cushions. He wanted to handle

the delicate jewels; to pull them about, and find out their mercantile value” (35). It is difficult to

read this passage without identifying the sexual innuendo that is present within it. The delicate

jewels are an obvious stand-in for the woman’s body. The wish to discover the “mercantile

value” of the jewels positions the body as an inanimate commodity, illuminating her status as

das Ding (35).

To further the discussion of Lady Audley as thing, we will examine her body in relation

to fetishization. In Braddon’s novel, Lady Audley’s hair is endowed with a great significance; it

is the fetishized object. Her hair is clearly obsessed over, and this is demonstrated in the number

of references throughout Lady Audley’s Secret. It is mentioned on nearly 40 pages of the novel’s

499. Lady Audley is described as a “fair-haired paragon” (Braddon 58, 62). Here, her hair

appears to be the defining characteristic of her being, in the sense that it is the referent by which

she is identified. We see her defined by her hair once again when she is referred to as a “golden-

haired sinner” (283). The repetition of “golden” in reference to the hue reinforces the

fetishization of her hair insofar as the arbitrary colour is endowed with a special value (147, 175,

183, 192, 333, 362, 410). Full paragraphs are dedicated to the description of Lady Audley’s

“feathery, gold-shot, flaxen curls” (73), such as when the narrator notes,

The governess lifted her head from its stooping attitude and stared wonderingly at her employer, shaking back a shower of curls. They were the most wonderful curls in the world – soft and feathery, always floating away from her face, and making a pale halo round her head when the sunlight shone through them (11).

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The mere space dedicated to the above description attests to the great significance of the lady’s

hair. Her curls appear to be a divine gift, a “shower” of heavenly rain, and they evoke wonder,

as they stand apart from all others in the entire world (11). Her hair forms a “halo round her

head” demonstrating how it gives her the appearance of a saint, fit for worship (11).

Freud argues that fetishes serve as a substitute for the woman’s missing penis, and

because fetishism acts as both an avowal and disavowal of castration anxiety, the fetishist will

often treat the object with “Affection and hostility…corresponding to the denial and

acknowledgment of castration” (“Fetishism” 94). He writes,

perhaps we can understand, albeit from a distance, the behaviour of men who like to cut off women’s plaits and ponytails, where the need to act out the denied castration has pushed to the fore. This action fuses together the two incompatible beliefs – that women still have a penis and that women have been castrated by the father. (94-95)

When Helen Talboys feigns her death, a lock of hair is severed from the head of the young

woman who lays dead under a gravestone bearing the name of George’s late wife. While visiting

Helen’s supposed final resting place, George is given a “long tress of hair wrapped in silver

paper” (Braddon 48). George’s reaction is to press “the soft lock to his lips” (48). The lock of

hair serves the dual purpose of avowal and disavowal. The horror of castration is avowed in the

sense that it has been severed like the woman’s penis, and by carrying it around George is able to

assume “the role of the father because it was him that the child ascribed the act of castrating

women,” and this allows him to become an agent in his own trauma (“Fetishism” 94). Castration

is disavowed insofar as the lock of hair stands for the penis, and because it takes the place of the

traumatic female lover.

We have seen how idealized femininity safeguards the phallus against castration, and

now we must turn our attention towards the second means of disavowal, the will to banish the

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lady to an otherworldly realm. This strategy involves the elevation of Lady Audley to the status

of the divine. Slavoj Žižek observes that the lady of courtly love poetry may be “perceived as a

kind of spiritual guide into the higher sphere of religious ecstasy,” but the elevation to the realm

of the sublime is nothing but an attempt to rid her of all of her “concrete features,” to position her

as a “cold, distanced, and inhuman partner” (“Courtly Love” 151). Implicit in this observation is

the idea that idealization is an attempt to mask the lady’s traumatic reality by creating a

remarkable distance between the pursuer and the object of his pursuit. Braddon’s narrator notes

that “Every one loved, and admired, and praised” Lady Audley (Braddon 8). “Love” and

admiration are suitable to bestow upon a human being, but “praise” is something offered up to

god (8). The “praise” that Lady Audley receives elevates her above the status of the human, and

this is reflected in Luke’s observation when he says of Lady Audley that “there isn’t a place

upon all the earth that’s good enough for her to set foot upon! (31). Luke’s belief that the earth is

too profane for Lady Audley to occupy, suggests that her proper place is the realm of the sacred.

She is also described as possessing a countenance that may have “served as a model for a

medieval saint” (242). Lady Audley is likened to a figure that has an unnatural connection to

god, one that warrants prayer and praise. In a letter to his sister, George Talboys insists that his

wife appears to have “the head of Madonna” like the one painted in some “Italian picture” (293).

The parallel between Lady Audley and the Virgin Mary positions the former as the perfect

woman, maternal and virtuous enough to deliver the Christ child. While George is grieving for

his supposedly late wife, “the old feeling came back that she was something too beautiful for

earth or earthly uses, and that to approach her was to walk in a higher atmosphere and to breathe

a purer air” (65). Again, we see that Lady Audley is too good for the earth, but also that she has

achieved a form of existence in a superior place more suited to her divine nature. The elevation

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masks the lady’s remarkable ability to provoke castration anxiety in men by positioning her as an

inaccessible object.

Lady Audley is also positioned as the inaccessible through the employment of the

rhetoric of magic evident in her descriptions. As Nina Auerbach argues in “The Woman and the

Demon,” the Victorians had a “mythic” imagination responsible for the creation of an

“explosively mobile, magic woman who breaks the boundaries of family within which her

society restricts her” (1). Auerbach argues that the image of the powerful and magical feminine

figure is a highly feminist gesture. However, I believe that in Lady Audley’s Secret the

attribution of magical powers to the female antagonist is instead but an attempt to render the

power of real flesh and blood woman obsolete insofar as her ability comes from a source external

to her own body and mind. This argument is substantiated through Robert Audley’s claim that

Lady Audley can no longer be considered a woman after she attempts to end his life by way of

fire. He says,

Henceforth you must seem to me no longer a woman; a guilty woman with a heart which is in its worst wickedness has yet some latent power to suffer and feel; I look upon you henceforth as the demonic incarnation

of some evil principle. (386)

Robert insists that women are incapable of committing malicious acts, and therefore

demonstrates a willingness to break the composite apart. Women, void of the stereotypically

feminine compassion cease to be women, and are instead viewed as monstrous beings from the

depths of hell.

Dramatizing the lady’s inaccessibility, the narrator states that, “Miss Lucy Graham was

blessed with the magic power of fascination by which a woman could charm with a word or

intoxicate with a smile” (8). Lady Audley exudes a unique power to mystify all men in her

presence. Her “magic power of fascination” likens her to an inhuman entity insofar as she

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possesses qualities that seem too great to be attributed to humans (8). It is also important to note

that her powers pose a threat to man, and this is evident in the use of the word “intoxicate” (8).

Lady Audley is represented as an addictive and harmful substance, and her beauty lures and

seduces men. Much like a succubus, the lady brings destruction to all those who copulate with

her. George Talboys is nearly killed by the femme fatale, whereas Sir Michael suffers a

metaphorical death described as a “barbed arrow” through his “tortured heart,” as a result of the

lady’s deceit (403).

Lady Audley takes the shape of a powerful, mythical, and ultimately inaccessible creature

in Robert Audley’s dream. In the dream, “the sleeper saw a pale, starry face looking out of the

silvery foam, and knew right away that it was my lady, transformed into a mermaid, beckoning

his uncle to destruction” (276). Nina Auerbach provides us with insight into Robert’s

unconscious interpretation of Lady Audley as a mermaid. She argues that mermaids embody the

hidden powers of women prone to commit quiet defiance that can go undetected by the

patriarchal order. Auerbach writes, mermaids “submerge themselves not to negate their power,

but to conceal it” (7). Lady Audley as mermaid also alludes to her destructive sexuality (96).

Edward Burne-Jones’ painting “The Depths of the Sea” depicts a mermaid leading a nude and

mortal male to her underwater lair. Such a painting figures mermaids as sexual beings bent on

bringing death to male subjects to satisfy their appetites. Like a mermaid, Lady Audley brings

destruction with sexual promiscuity, and defies patriarchal authority until Robert Audley begins

to suspect her misdeeds. Robert’s interpretation of Lady Audley as a mermaid protects

femininity in the sense that power and ability is assigned to a mythical creature, as opposed to a

real flesh and blood woman. Thus, power such as that exhibited by Lady Audley can only exist

in fantasy.

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Lady Audley’s “traumatic dimension” is also disavowed in her constant comparison to a

fairy (“Courtly Love” 151). She is figured wearing a “fairy-like bonnet,” and her beauty is

interpreted as “a fairy dower” (Braddon 64, 332). A letter printed in the lady’s delicate hand is

described as a “fairy-like note,” and she hovers “around a stand of hothouse flowers” with “a

pair of fairy-like silver-mounted embroidery scissors” (72, 88). Her apartments contain a “fairy

boudoir,” decorated with “fairy-like embroideries of lace and muslin” (425, 330). In “Strange

and Secret Peoples: Fairies in Victorian Consciousness,” Carole G. Silver argues that a fairy

bride, “prohibited her husband from certain speech or action and retained the right to leave him -

with or without the offspring of the union” (91). This fairy bride story parallels Lady Audley’s

insofar as she quit her first husband as the result of a broken promise of riches, and left her only

son in the charge of her alcoholic father, Captain Maldon. Through Braddon’s constant framing

of Lady Audley as “fairy-like,” she paints her villain as a strong, powerful, transgressive and

inaccessible female, while simultaneously showing the masculine inclination to dismiss female

power by ascribing it to the supernatural (64, 72, 88).

Lady Audley is also compared to a witch, a traditionally antithetical figure to the fairy.

Here, we see the composite at work once again. Lady Audley possesses the beauty and grace of

a fairy, while simultaneously possessing the propensity for evil and mischief, like a witch. While

greeting Robert, Lady Audley “smiles most bewitchingly” in his direction, and the young man

grieves for his uncle who had been “bewitched” by the lady’s “beauty, and bewildered by her

charms” (294, 395). On his sick bed, Sir Michael Audley contemplates his wife’s “bewitching

manner,” and Lady Audley herself admits that she was referred to as a “pretty – beautiful –

lovely – bewitching” child (347, 393). The rhetoric of Lady Audley’s witchery becomes more

direct when Robert contemplates George’s infatuation with Helen Maldon. While envisioning

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the pair’s first meeting Robert says, “hey, presto! the witchcraft has begun: the magic circle is

drawn around him, the spells are at work, the whole formula of sorcery is in play, and the victim

is powerless” (277). The use of “presto” draws a parallel between falling in love and the

workings of magic (277). Helen uses “witchcraft” and “sorcery” to ensnare and render her

“victim […] powerless” (277). While confronting Lady Audley with regards to her crimes,

Robert rebukes the lady for her refusal to “repent [of her] wickedness in some foreign place, far

from the generous man [that she had] deceived and fooled [with her] false witcheries” (309).

Lady Audley’s witch-like ability may be observed while she performs “The most

feminine and most domestic of all occupations” (249). While the lady serves him tea, Robert

watches the,

magic harmony to her every movement, a witchery at every glance. The floating mists from the boiling liquid in which she infuses the soothing herbs, whose secrets are known to her alone, envelop her in a cloud of scented vapour through which she seems a social fairy, weaving potent spells with Gunpowder and Bohea. (249-250)

Perceiving a murderess, bigamist, and arsonist executing a feminine duty such as preparing tea

seriously jeopardizes the innocence of femininity. For this reason, Lady Audley appears not as a

domestic goddess, but as a witch concocting a fatal brew. The parallel between Lady Audley

and witchcraft also illuminates her role as castrator. Malleus Maleficarum, an infamous

guidebook on how to prosecute the crime of witchcraft, draws a connection between witches and

castration. Several instances in the text describe a witch’s propensity to steal penises from men

(Smith 85). By positioning Lady Audley as a witch, Braddon illuminates her power to defy the

patriarchal order, but also draws attention to the way in which such powers are attributed to

magical entities to disavow the ability of real human women.

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Turning now to the third and final strategy of disavowal, we encounter the male tendency

to avert the gaze. The male characters in Lady Audley’s Secret often avoid looking directly at the

femme fatale to avoid any perception of the feminine threat. Now aware of Lady Audley’s

transgressions, Robert’s eyes meet the lady’s. He observes how,

She defied him with her blue eyes, their brightness intensified in their glance. She defied him in her quiet smile – a smile of fatal beauty, full of lurking significance and mysterious meaning – the smile which the artist had exaggerated in the portrait of Sir

Michael’s wife. (244)

Earlier, Lady Audley’s portrait invoked George Talboys’ phallic loss, and now the perception of

the lady’s defiance paired with her “smile of fatal beauty” proves too horrific for Robert to

endure (244). His response is to turn “away from that lovely face, and [shade] his eyes with his

hand; putting a barrier between my lady and himself; a screen which baffled her penetration”

(244). Like Perseus, he averts his gaze to protect himself against a direct look at the lady. He

protects himself against her ability to destabilize his masculinity through “penetration” (244).

The “barrier” or “screen” is reminiscent of the male necessity to erect an obstacle between

himself, and the object of his desire (244). In his essay, “On the Universal Tendency to

Debasement in the Sphere of Love,” Freud writes,

the psychical value of erotic needs is reduced as soon astheir satisfaction becomes easy. An obstacle is required

in order to heighten libido; and where natural resistances to satisfaction have not been sufficient men have at all

times erected conventional ones so as to be able to enjoy love. (187)

Although Robert’s desire is not to obtain Lady Audley as a sexual partner, he does require her

exposure and subsequent confinement to acquire the love of Clara Talboys who relies upon him

to solve the case of George’s disappearance and supposed murder. Lady Audley is the

“obstacle” that heightens his libidinal energy directed at George’s only sister by avoiding her

Irwin 23

deadly gaze (187). The strength of Lady Audley’s gaze even proves too much for Luke Marks

who is in a position of mastery while blackmailing his opponent. After Marks demands one

hundred pounds for his secrecy, “Lady Audley rose from her seat, looked the man steadfastly in

the face till his determined gaze sank under hers” (125). A direct look at the lady reveals her

superior strength, and Marks is forced to look away.

Mad vs. Madness: By Way of Conclusion

Now that the male tendency to disavow the threatening nature of woman has been

established, it is necessary to consider the novel’s end in order to determine whether or not

Braddon intended to portray Lady Audley as mad. In Violent Woman and Sensation Fiction,

Andrew Mangham attempts to paint a picture of Lady Audley as a madwoman by analyzing the

rhetoric of hysteria present in Braddon’s novel. He argues that in the scene prefiguring the fire at

the Castle Inn, we see the signs of madness, as evident in the following passage:

The red blood flashed up into my Lady’s face with as sudden and transient a blaze as the flickering flame of a fire, and died suddenly away, leaving her more pale than winter snow […] With every pulse slackening, with every drop congealing in her veins, […] the terrible process […] was […] transforming her into a statue […] An unnatural crimson spot burned in the

centre of each cheek, and an unnatural lustre gleamed in her great blue eyes. She spoke with an unnatural clearness and an unnatural rapidity. She had altogether the appearance and manner of a person who has yielded to the dominant influence of some overpowering excitement. (qtd. in Mangham 88)

Focusing on the “circulation of blood in the female perpetrator’s body,” characterized by its

“excesses,” Mangham likens Lady Audley’s state to that of Martha Brixley’s, whose “menstrual

blockage had allegedly led to cutting the throat of the baby under her care” (89). Like Brixley,

“Lady Audley’s body is linked to the murderous act she is about to commit,” aligning her with

the criminally insane (89). I believe, however, that what we see in this passage is not proof of

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the lady’s insanity, but proof of her anger which is far more controversial for a woman to

possess. Whereas madness is an affliction, something attributed from without, anger is innate,

something forcing its way out from within. Whereas insanity inscribes itself upon the object and

would position the female as passive, anger attests to woman’s status as an author, critic and

actor. The connection between Lady Audley’s blood and fire described in the passage above is

intended to present her as a figure whose blood is boiling. It is doubtful that an insane individual

could speak “with an unnatural clearness,” which shows that her “overpowering excitement” is

something other than madness (qtd. in Mangham 88).

Mangham also argues that at the time of the fire, Lady Audley is experiencing a

hysterical response to a sexual experience. He is correct to posit the sexual innuendo present in

Lady Audley’s meeting with Luke Marks, but his analysis falls just short in trying to detect

madness in the lady’s demeanour. Marks is figured as thrusting a fire “poker into a great heap of

coals,” and the result is a terrible fire that claims his life lit by the lady herself (90). Mangham

likens this sexual encounter to one represented in A Secret Life. In the text, the anonymous

author describes a sexual experience with a servant girl. The author writes,

I became conscious that she was pushing me off her, and rose up, she with me, to a half sitting posture; she began to laugh, then to

cry, and fell back in hysterics, as I had seen her before. I had seen my mother attend to her in those fits, but little did I then know that sexual excitement causes these fits. (qtd. in Mangham 90)

The anonymous author of this passage demonstrates the Victorian belief that sexual activity can

lead to hysteria in women. Though we can clearly perceive the signs of hysteria in the case of

the servant girl, we see no such breakdown in the case of Lady Audley. The clever woman

feigns light-headedness in order to secure a means to escape the presence of Luke and Phoebe

Marks, and this enables her to set the inn ablaze without being perceived (Braddon 361). She

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then places the candle strategically close “to the starched muslins” which draws “the flame

towards it” (363). The calm and calculated manner in which Lady Audley executes her plan in

no way indicates hysteria. Also, there is textual evidence to suggest that Lady Audley had

resolved to burn the inn long before the symbolic sexual encounter with Luke Marks. In a

moment of clarity, the lady says aloud “Robert Audley [...] If the struggle between us is the duel

to the death, you shall not find me drop my weapon” (356). She then proceeds to ensure that

Robert Audley is indeed in the inn long before she arrives at the public house. Lady Audley’s

calm nature and careful planning shows that she is not motivated by madness at the time of the

fire.

In another attempt to pin Lady Audley as mad, Mangham recapitulates the argument that

the powerful woman herself evokes. He argues that Lady Audley has inherited her supposed

madness from her mother. After all, the lady herself says,

My mother was a madwoman […] Her madness was a hereditary disease transmitted to her from her mother, who had died mad. She my mother had been, or appeared, sane up until the hour of my birth; but from that hour her intellect decayed […] The only inheritance I had to expect from my mother was insanity! (qtd. in Mangham 103)

Later, Lady Audley claims to have absorbed “the hidden taint” of insanity present in her

“mother’s milk” (qtd. in Mangham 103). How are we to trust the word of Lady Audley, an

accomplished liar and criminal? Are we not more inclined to believe the doctor who tells us

otherwise? Upon Robert’s initial meeting with Dr. Mosgrave, the doctor says “I do not believe

that she is mad” (Braddon 423). The doctor continues,

there is no evidence of madness in anything that she has done. She ran away from her home, because her home was not a pleasant one, and she left it in the hope of finding a better one. There is no madness in that. She committed

the crime of bigamy, because by that crime she obtained fortune and position. There is no madness there. When she found herself in a desperate position, she did not grow desperate. She employed intelligent means, and she carried

Irwin 26

out a conspiracy which required coolness and deliberation in its execution. There is no madness in that. (423)

What we see in Dr. Mosgrave’s opinion is a strong insistence that Lady Audley is hardly

motivated by insanity. We instead see someone who has the intelligence and ambition necessary

to attain a more favourable status in life. Perhaps it would be more suited to attribute Lady

Audley’s actions to anger. She is an individual fed up with the inadequacy of her father and first

husband and employs “coolness and deliberation” to achieve a better life, one less dominated by

failed men (423).

Dr. Mosgrave’s opinion of Lady Audley barely changes in his assessment of her

condition. He informs Robert that,

There is latent insanity! Insanity which might appear only onceor twice in a lifetime. It would be dementia in its worst phrase:

acute mania but its duration would be very brief, and it would only arise under extreme mental pressure. The lady is not mad; but she has the hereditary taint in her blood. She has the cunning of madness with the prudence of intelligence. I will tell you what she is, Mr. Audley. She is dangerous. (425)

The diagnosis of “latent insanity” implies that an action committed in a moment of madness has

yet to occur; insanity is not yet visible, but completely possible (425). The doctor insists once

again that “The lady is not mad” (425). The diagnosis is that she is “dangerous” (425).

What precisely makes Lady Audley a “dangerous” woman is her ability to render male

inadequacy visible, which in turn, generates castration anxiety in men, as Freud has shown us.

Her intense desire to marry a rich suitor illuminates her father’s status as a failed man in the

sense that his “half-pay” has doomed her to a childhood and adolescence characterized by

“poverty” (393, 394). Helen’s marriage to George Talboys enabled her to experience the

“Continent, traveling in the best style, and always staying in the best hotels,” but the happiness

only lasted until the money was gone, and then the couple returned to Captain Maldon’s poverty

Irwin 27

stricken home (395). George’s inability to secure employment during this time signifies his

status as a failed masculine figure who cannot provide for his family, while his decision to

abandon his wife and newly born son for the Antipodes in an attempt to “seek a fortune”

illuminates his impulsiveness and irrationality (396). Helen Maldon’s decision to feign her own

death to acquire another husband under the assumed name of Lucy Graham solidifies George’s

status as inadequate. George’s discovery of his wife’s bigamy, and his subsequent attempted

murder in the vaginal well provides irrefutable proof of Lady Audley’s “dangerous” nature

(425).

Lady Audley’s ability to threaten patriarchal dominance through her rendering visible of

male inadequacy proves too “dangerous” for the feeble men in her presence (425). The

construction of idealized femininity, her beauty and fragility, innocence and infantilization,

dehumanization and fetishization, divinity and otherworldliness is but an attempt to disavow the

horror of castration. When all else fails, only confinement to a maison de santé serves as an

adequate means to reduce the woman’s “traumatic dimension,” and thus enables the perpetuation

of patriarchal dominance (“Courtly Love” 151).

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