My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Page 131

130

The structure of the 19th Gothic novel
typically situates the female heroine
in a position of vulnerability and
victimization. But, certain female
protagonists such as Lady Audley from
Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s “Lady
Audley’s Secret”, Bertha from Charlotte
Bronte’s “Jane Eyre”, Zola’s “Therese
Raquin”, Wilkie Collin’s “The Woman
in White”, and the woman in Charlotte
Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”
to name a few, were exceptions. These
heroines gained agency by going insane,
as it was a way for them to escape ennui
or misery from extreme powerlessness
and wreck havoc while doing so.

q
Therese Raquin, 2011
(by Zola),
Acrylic and digital photographs on fabric on board
46 x 36 inches
m
Lady Audley, 2011
(from Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon)
Acrylic and digital photographs on fabric on board
40 x 32 inches
ll
Emily Dickinson, 2012
(Much Madness is Divinest Sense)
Acrylic and digital photographs on fabric on board
20 x 16 inches