Madness as a Literary Device Revised
Madness as a literary device
I must admit that I found the ending to Lady Audley’s Secret to be a let down, after the systematic build up of all the evidence, Robert’s increasing agony and Lady Audley’s brazen deceit, I expected more resolution. The use of “madness” an ambiguous diagnosis to tie everything up in so orderly a way frustrated me. Especially since the term madness could be applied to almost anyone during at this time. In one of my other classes we are reading some of the works of Edgar Allen Poe which rely heavily on the theme of madness. I was intrigued by what the functional definition of madness during this time period. While doing research for my English 372 class I went to to rare books section of the WSU library and looked at medical books from 1678 up until 1870. I was shocked at how primitive and hypothetical medical knowledge and the diagnosis process was during this time. Here are some of the definitions of madness that I found, which may be of interest to any reader of Lady Audley’s Secret. The term mad did not used to carry the connotation of anger, that is a relatively new development.
“The state is characterized by an unrestrained behavior; by an extravagant pursuit of something real or imaginary, to the ruin of himself, or the annoyance of his friend; and ultimately leads him, if opposed in his wishes, to acts of extreme violence. This is what many physicians call mania or madness.”
Listed Causes: Extremes of heat and cold, intense study-where the efforts of the mind are directed more exclusively in one channel, intoxication, prostitution, self-interest, ambition, pride, avarice, the struggle between the principles of religion, morality and education on one side and the passions on the other, hereditary disposition.
Taken from Graham’s Domestic Medicine by Thomas John Graham M.D. London 1827 pg. 440
The other definitions differ slightly but are equally unscientific. So to say that Lady Audley was “mad” and therefore not guilty is a questionable diagnosis, which relies heavily on the opinion of doctors whose knowledge of the human mind were extremely limit. However, the very fact that madness was such an ambiguous state would make the novel all the more terrifying for its Victorian readers.
Revised version of “Mary Braddon Drew Inspiration from Her Own Life?”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2003/aug/09/featuresreviews.guardianreview14
In the above article, fellow reader of british literature Lucasta Miller talks about Mary Braddon’s “Lady Audley’s Secret” and what she noticed as many similarities between Mary Braddon’s dramatically eventful life and the themes present in her book. I thought it was interesting to find an article on the front page of Google that was so relevant to our lectures, considering we have been discussing the backgrounds of each author we’ve read. I don’t think it’s too common for the lives of authors to be some of the most popular results on an internet search, but apparently with Braddon enough symbolism in her books was drawn from her life experiences that it warrants great discussion. I also found it intriguing that Mary Braddon was an actress for seven or eight years. This must have exercised her vivid imagination and inspired many of her stories.
However, Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s various bibliographies don’t remain entirely consistent with one another. In Miller’s article, she offers the reason for the divorce of Braddon’s parents (her father being a “crooked solicitor, who spent his time gambling, drinking and womanising”), mentions the sexual dangers that existed for a young girl in the theatre, and describes John Gilby as not just a commissioner of her poems but as a “sinister figure with withered legs, moving around on two sticks” who attempted to control her life. Furthermore, Miller describes Braddon’s relationship with her husband John Maxwell as secret and sinful because of the rumor that Mr. Maxwell was still married at the time to a woman in an insane asylum and it was only after her death in 1874 that Braddon and Maxwell could officially be wife and husband.
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/braddon/bio.html
On the other hand, in the above article by Phillip V. Allingham, he mentions the divorce of Braddon’s parents but doesn’t give any other explanation other than that Mary Braddon’s father was a Cornish solicitor who “attempted to get himself out of debt by writing for such periodicals as The Sportsman’s Magazine.” As for Braddon’s time in the theatre, Allingham doesn’t bring up anything of the dangers that would be associated with being young, female, and in a profession dominated by males. Oppositely, that is what Miller focuses on when she discusses Braddon’s theatrical career. Allingham also speaks of John Gilby as a sort of mentor to Braddon, and yet doesn’t spare more than two sentences explaining why. This is quite a different opinion of John Gilby than Miller described. Braddon and Maxwell’s relationship is not expanded on in Allingham’s article other than Maxwell’s first wife had been confined to a Dublin asylum and so Braddon took over as wife and mother to his children. There is a brief mention later of the woman’s death in 1874, but the element of secrecy involved in Braddon and Maxwell’s marriage that is present in Miller’s article is absent in Allingham’s. What Allingham continues to elaborate on about Braddon’s life that Miller doesn’t touch on is her experience with death and grief. Between 1866 and 1895, Mary Braddon loses her son Francis, her mother, her sister Maggie, and her husband John.
However Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s life actually played out, there are truths that we can take from each bibliography. It is known that her parents divorced, she spent time in the theater, she knew a man named John Gilby that helped to continue her writing career, she was in a relationship with John Maxwell for some time before they married, and she was no stranger to grief and sorrow by losing many loved ones in a relatively short span of time.
Mary Braddon was also witness to separation, secrecy and fake identities with her career in the theatre, the obvious domination that men possessed during that time in history, and potential bigamy. If one reflects on the characteristics of her most popular novel, “Lady Audley’s Secret”, and the themes present in Mary Braddon’s life, it’s no great leap to deduce that she wove much of her personal history into her sensation novels. It seems many of the authors we’ve talked about have had surprisingly hard or traumatic lives, with many issues related to their loved ones, but maybe the great sacrifice and pain that was so prevalent in Mary Braddon’s life influenced her great genius and inspiration, and consequently her main role as “Queen of Sensation”.
First Reader: The Beetle ending
The conclusion of Richard Marsh’s The Beetle was…just as strange as the novel! At least we had some resolution; still, I wish we could have heard more from the Beetle directly. The changing perspectives were interesting throughout, and many came through to tie the story together. I was surprised by the admission of Lessinghman about his experiences in which he seems to be “tainted” by his captor. Similarly, Marjorie is “tainted” by the Beetle (publicly humiliated). Yet, both seem to continue to survive within society. Marjorie however had to go through psychological evaluations, while Lessignham only required time. The continued differences between genders and gender roles creates an ending focused on characters, dependent upon their actions to propagate themes including fear of the unknown.
First reader: The Beetle ending
After three parts of the book that seemed to drag on with unconnecting and dry material, finally something seems to happen.
The first 3/4 of the book took the point of view of three different characters, and I questioned why the author chose to do that. Because less than one hundred pages were given to each character, I never fully liked or understood them. In the last portion when Majorie is ‘kidnapped’ I didn’t really care because I didn’t identify with her character and wasn’t invested in what happened to her. In fact, it was even difficult for me to switch between when Lessingham and Artherton were talking because I couldn’t keep straight who was who. What do you think the author wanted to accomplish by taking the point of view of 4 different character?
Also, why was the plot so slow in developing? I may be biased, but I wasn’t a fan of this novel as much because I was typically bored throughout most of it. Only during the ending could I not put it down.
I also thought it interesting that the last part of the book was taken from a character who was never once introduced before he was the protagonist. At least the other three characters (Holt, Sydney, and Majorie) interconnected, but the introduction of a detective was hard for me to swallow. Why do you think he was introduced for the first time so late in the novel?
Roundup: The Beetle
In response to the blog post ‘Response to The Beetle’, I found the topic of comparing and contrasting the other novels interesting. The book was starkly different than the others we read, but the one I could compare this book the most to was Lady Audley’s Secret. The darkness and tint of murder in this novel reminded me vaguely of the secrets and blackmail in Braddon’s novel.
One other comparison I thought of was the intrigue and suspense that kept you wanting to read, which was only similar to Braddon’s as well. In Frankenstein and Northanger Abbey the plot was revealed as a story that you could put down and pick back up at any point and know exactly where you started and what was happening. In the other two novels, the suspense kept you wanting to read more.
Roundup: The beetle and the art of terror
For this week’s round up felt “The beetle and the art of terror” fit the bill. i feel the very notion of fear, terror and suspense is almost to sinfully good to indulge in and when explored tends to delve into questions about who we are, what we can become, and what we are willing to do. but most importantly what is it that causes use to do these things and become these people. The Egyptians do this well, and these peices do an equally well job delving into said matters. in a sense, when wallowing on the quote “a direct relationship between the craftsmanship required to produce the object and the horror of its image.” as stated in both peices, however i feel an interestingly disturbing point can be said that what the quote is getting at with this “relationship” is that the could very well be a representation of man and horror of course that may b r pure speculation.
Weekly Round up - The Beetle
Although this week in class we focused a lot on the final project, there was much discussion going on around this week’s novel, The Beetle. The Beetle was quite the mystery thriller, and I personally found it to be one of my favorite books we’ve read all semester. Some of our fellow classmates brought up many valid points about the book, and the most interesting one to me was from Colby, on how it compared to some of the other novels we read during the semester. I definitely agree with the fact that the book correlates much more with Frankenstein, rather than Lady Audleys secret. I thought it was very interesting how Colby explains the novel as portraying different perspectives of the main characters, which also helped me to understand what was actually going on in the novel and give me a sense of insight knowledge of each character. Corinne also commented on Colby’s post, and made some interesting discussion topics as well. Corrine explains how Marsh takes a while to explain many details about the main characters such as why he is homeless and desperately looking for shelter. These were all valid points which were some of the same questions I had in my head while I was reading the novel.
Weekly Round-up
I have really enjoyed the discussion of the Beetle if we had not had the discussion many of the elements would not have jumped out at me at all. Things the the Egyptian elements as being common literary devices at the time this was written ect. For this weeks searchers I really like the route that Emily looked into by looking up the role of beetles in folklore. Since so much of this book relies on the study of ancient cultures and customs looking further into beetles could be a really enriching study for the understanding of this book. Its especially interesting that the Egyptians apparently held the beetle to be a sacred animal.
Response to a Response to The Beetle:
I agree with Corinne’s comparison of Northanger Abbey and The Beetle. While I had difficulty getting through Austen’s novel, I’m enjoying The Beetle. I think it’s partly the fantastical and mysterious subject matter-Egyptian mythology and “mesmerism” and murder, oh my!-but it’s also the way the novel is structured. I love that it opens right in the middle of the action, with no explanation or flowery descriptions. There’s no biography of the character (or of some magnificent old house). A Study in Scarlet was similar in this way, and I think it was the most readable book of the semester until now. The Beetle is keeping me hooked because I want to find out what happened in the past and what’s going to happen in the future. Northanger Abbey explained everything that came before, and was very predictable. Lady Audley’s Secret tried to be very mysterious, but was also easy to figure out.
I wonder why these later novels are so much more interesting. Is it just the different genre, of Sensation and detective novels? Or is it the different time period? I want to know if novels began to be structured more creatively, with different narrators and time periods, as society and literature progressed. It reminds me of how movies began to play around with narrative structure more as the artform aged-for example, classic Hollywood films generally stuck with one main character and followed a more-or-less chronological timeline. But then you get to films like Pulp Fiction or Requiem for a Dream, and there are episodes told from different perspectives, and the story isn’t necessarily told in order.
Searcher: The Beetle
So I wasn’t quite sure what to look for this week regarding the novel The Beetle. When I searched the name into Google, all I found was the actual book, and numerous variations of the front cover art. So instead, I decided to focus on why Marsh chose to have the disgusting creature be a beetle-like creature as opposed to a snake or a worm or something. So I searched beetle mythology and found this website that goes into different folklore and myths surrounding the beetle. It includes the Mediterranean view of these creatures and the Egyptians worship of the Scarab Beetle. Its pretty interesting and gives you a new perspective to this story. Check it out.
http://socyberty.com/folklore/beetles-in-folklore-and-mythology/