declaration of madness in greater depth, as well
as to consider what my findings reveal about the
perceptions of mental illness over time, and the
ways in which society should seek to improve its
understanding.
In order to appropriately examine Lady Audley’s
alleged ‘madness,’ we must first establish a definition
of madness with which her actions can be compared.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines ‘madness’ as
‘the state of being mentally ill, or unable to behave
in a reasonable way’ (Author Unknown, 2019). It is
through this lens that I wish to examine the actions
of Lady Audley. I hope to firmly establish that,
whilst certainly morally questionable, Lady Audley
acted ‘reasonably’ throughout the novel, outwardly
behaving as was expected of a woman in her position,
and taking appropriate measures to preserve her
secret.
Literature Review
The nature of Lady Audley’s ‘madness’ has long been
studied by scholars of Victorian Literature. In her
study on the role of Lady Audley’s maid, Phoebe
Marks in the novel, Elizabeth Steere chooses to take
Lady Audley’s admission of madness at face value
(Steere, 2008, 300). This however, is not the stance
many scholars take.
In her convincing examination of the link between
theatricality, naturality, and the soul in Braddon’s
work, Lynn Voskuil explores the notion that all women
in the Victorian Era were expected to perform the
role of the submissive wife. She argues that this
role was performed despite the fact that all women
- and oftentimes the men - knew that this was a
performance and that women held their own internal
opinions: they were simply not expected to voice
them (Voskuil, 2001, 611-639). This notion is an
important one when examining Lady Audley’s actions,
as, if it was widely accepted that women did have
their own opinions and internally think in ‘unladylike’
ways but were simply not permitted to voice these
views, then it becomes clear that Lady Audley did not
behave in a manner particularly different to that of
other women in the same period. This is supported by
Judith Butler’s theory of Gender Performativity (1988,
520), which claims that gender is a societal construct,
with women and men both outwardly acting in
accordance with societal expectations of their gender,
even if inwardly they do not feel entirely comfortable
in this performance. Lady Audley’s outward
countenance was one of poise and ‘womanly’ grace.
She was the Lady of an upper-class household, who
submitted to providing tea for her guests, rather than
delegating these tasks to employed household staff
(Braddon, 176). If Voskuil’s argument is accepted, then
it must follow that Lady Audley was not behaving
particularly unusually for a woman in this period:
retaining her own inward personality and strength
of character whilst demonstrating an outward
performance of the ideal, submissive woman.
Nolan Boyd and Jill Matus both focus their analysis
on the ways in which Lady Audley’s declaration of
madness is impacted by and impacts upon common
Victorian beliefs regarding class, gender, and sexuality.
Though Boyd does not dispute Lady Audley’s
madness, he instead questions the meaning of the
term, and argues that her ‘madness’ was a form of
disability, influenced by her inability to naturally
and internally adhere to the traditional, gendered
expectations of society (Boyd, 2018, 409-410).
Jill Matus chooses to focus on what Lady Audley’s
declaration of madness reveals about the society
in which the novel is set, ultimately arguing that, in
declaring herself mad, Lady Audley (and so Mary
Elizabeth Braddon), undermines the class struggle
which is the main cause of Lady Audley’s behaviour,
reducing the desperate actions of a woman seeking a
better life for herself to a simple representation of the
shortcomings of female biology (Matus, 1992, 334).
Though I believe Matus and Boyd’s arguments
provide an interesting opportunity to examine
the associations of madness with diversions from
other societal norms, I want to go beyond these
considerations of what Lady Audley’s alleged
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