Paper proposal example
Phoebe and the Craft of Lady Audley’s Secret
Written by Jessica Mehr
Proposal for "Victorian Sensations"
Emily Allen, Purdue University, Fall 2010
The role of servant characters in Victorian fiction has been well-criticized by literary scholars over the years. Since their function as the “eyes and ears” of the private sphere represented a real-life concern, it is not surprising that “so many nineteenth-century novels feature servants prominently as snoops, voyeurs, and blackmailers” (McCusky 360). The status of servants as surveillants is especially critical in sensation novels, since the plot is so often driven by mystery. As Kathleen Tillotson points out, the best sensation novels are “novels with a secret,” a device that forced authors to develop new narrative strategies that “tantalize the reader by withholding information rather than divulging it” (Brantlinger 1-2, quoting Tillotson). The “secret” knowledge possessed by servants in sensation novels is more than mere fodder for gossip; it is a matter of life and death, essential to the novel’s inevitable crimes and the public record that strives to reconstruct/rectify them. As surveillants, the servant characters wield the power to determine the villain’s fate, are called upon by the “detective” to reveal their knowledge on the public record, or disseminate misinformation that sets tragic events (such as murder and adultery) in motion. Despite their importance to the plot, however, the servants in sensation novels (like their realist counterparts) often lack depth of character. Bruce Robbins discusses the lack of accurate working-class characters in his book, The Servant’s Hand, which demonstrates how 19th-century novelists still relied on “the much repeated master-servant tropes and devices” from Elizabethan and Restoration comedy (Robbins xi).
One exception to this is the character of Phoebe Marks, Lady Audley's maid in Lady Audley’s Secret. While Phoebe’s knowledge of the eponymous secret does serve as a plot device that drives the narrative tension, her character is much more than an “accessory used to complicate or resolve the action” (Robbins x). Unlike Joyce in East Lynne or the Jeffsons in The Doctor’s Wife, Phoebe is a fully-realized, round character, crucial not only to the novel’s plot, but its craft. There are few representations of Lady Audley that the reader can trust. In his essay, “What is Sensational about the Sensation Novel?” Patrick Brantlinger discusses the problematic nature of having an omniscient narrator in sensation novels, since this narrator knows, but refuses to share, the novel’s secrets. These narrative difficulties are especially clear in Lady Audley’s Secret, in which the narrator’s avoidance of the secret and interjections are often very heavy-handed, creating a palpable sense of unreliability. Braddon cannot give us true access to Lady Audley’s interiority for similar reasons; Lucy obviously knows her own secrets, and illuminating her consciousness might create reader sympathy, prompting moral outrage that Braddon could not endorse. Instead we see Lady Audley through the lens of an unreliable narrator and Robert, whose perspective on Lady Audley's villainy is skewed by her infiltration of his class and family, as well as the attempted murder of his best friend. Since we cannot trust these perceptions of Lady Audley, the reader is left with direct forms of characterization to illuminate her character: detail, action, appearance, and dialogue.
I will discuss a number of details, actions, and passages of dialogue that contradict Lady Audley’s character as a one-dimensional villain. However, the bulk of my paper will focus on the relationship between Lucy and Phoebe, her maid, which is defined in large part by their similarity in appearance. Phoebe is Lady Audley minus the beauty and passion (represented by her lack of color), with a dose of self-control. Unlike Joyce, the servant character in East Lynne, who seems to idolize Lady Isabel as aristocrat-born, Phoebe resents Lucy’s meteoric rise from her own social caste, and whenever they are together, an emphasis is placed on the material luxuries and superficialities that separate them—social constructions as opposed to essential differences. Their overly familiar relationship defies typical mistress-servant propriety. Phoebe’s presence serves as a constant reminder of Lucy’s humble origins, and illuminates Victorian society’s fears of class fluidity and its consequences (in this case, attempted murder and bigamy). Phoebe’s motivations and desires are provided much more clearly than Lady Audley’s, creating a depth of character that defies traditional representations of Victorian servants in fiction. Her life is not completely wrapped up in that of her mistress. She is not a self-sacrificing appendage to Lucy, not an evil conspirator; she is a representative member of the working class, conscious of her own economic circumstances, the monetary value of Lucy’s aristocratic identity, and the reality of her future after the novel closes.
This leads to the crux of my argument: that Lady Audley is characterized chiefly through Phoebe. Elaine Showalter identifies a second, feminist layer to the novel; I submit that this is achieved in large part through a second, embedded layer of fictional craft, which creates the illusion of plot superseding character, when in reality Lady Audley is characterized with great depth through her proximate relationship to Phoebe. The social construction/superficiality of their differences makes them two versions of the same person, and it is fair to view Phoebe’s future as what Lucy’s might have been if she had exercised self-control. They are similar not only in appearance and class, but to a certain degree, behavior. Phoebe, like Lady Audley, is a talented performer and acts exclusively with her own self-interest in mind. However, the narrative interjections used to separate us from Lady Audley’s character fall away when Phoebe is center stage, and despite Phoebe's calculating behavior, the reader can sympathize with her based on the harsh realities of her economic situation. Since these realities are identical to those of Lucy before committing bigamy (minus the child), I believe that we are meant to extend this sympathy to her as Phoebe’s double. Phoebe’s character is the missing link, illuminating Lady Audley’s humanity to the reader while Robert creates a smokescreen of villainy.
Taking all of this into account, one may consider LAS to be character, not plot-driven. The narrative is superficially driven by Robert’s uncovering of Lady Audley's villainess character, but in reality, it is our construction of her character that drives the plot. The ambiguity of her character, and our desire to pin it down, is what makes us turn the pages. When you add up the direct characterization techniques Braddon implements throughout the novel, as well as her similarities to Phoebe, we are left not with a one-dimensional villain or madwoman, but an overwhelmed and sympathetic young girl acting from moment to moment. While Lady Audley ends, unrepentant for her crimes, in an asylum, her “successful” counterpart, Phoebe, does not fair that much better. She ends up where she started: a working-class girl with a very working-class husband, who falls out of the narrative when Lady Audley does. If this is the reward for self-control, Braddon’s commentary seems to focus on the poor options granted to working-class women, and the lack of rewards regardless of what they do.
Works Cited
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Lady Audley’s Secret. London: Penguin Classics, 1998.
Brantlinger, Patrick. "What Is 'Sensational' about the 'Sensation Novel'?" Nineteenth-Century Fiction (1982): 1-28.
McCuskey, Brian. "The Kitchen Police: Servant Surveillance and Middle-Class Transgression." Victorian Literature and Culture 28.2
(2000): 359-357.
Annotated Bibliography
Brantlinger, Patrick. "What Is 'Sensational' about the 'Sensation Novel'?" Nineteenth-Century Fiction (1982): 1-28.
Brantlinger’s discussion of narrative craft in the sensation novel is important to my paper, especially the problems it raises in terms of narrative omniscience. He states that sensationalism, “Marks the evolution of a genre…which refuses to follow the path of direct revelation prescribed by realism but instead hides as much as it reveals” (2). The narrative difficulties created by the sensation novel are especially clear in Lady Audley’s Secret. We cannot get Lucy’s perspective for practical reasons; she knows the secret and might engender sympathy on the reader’s part. Braddon uses this to her advantage by constructing Lucy’s villainy as ambiguous and characterizing her through Phoebe. At the same time, the omniscient narrator’s coy avoidance of the truth undermines the narrator’s credibility, underlining (in my opinion) the idea that nothing in this book should be taken at face value.
Fenn, George Manville. "Art of Mystery in Fiction." The North American Review 156.437 (1893): 432-438.
This contemporary article weighs in on the character versus plot debate surrounding sensation novels. While the author clearly considers the use of mystery to drive a novel subordinate to the illumination of character, he makes an interesting concession: “It is not great, perhaps, this art of mystery in fiction, partaking as it does of the nature of a puzzle or conundrum; still it is ingenious though stagy…and surely to be commended as an art worthy of a meed of praise” (435). While I agree that most of these novels are not high art, there is still an interesting use of narrative craft at work, especially the well-paced arc of tension.
Hughes, Winifred. The Maniac in the Cellar: Sensation Novels of the 1860’s. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.
This entire book provides useful context on the genre. In the chapter titled, “The Sensation Paradox,” Hughes discusses the explosion of the sensation genre onto the literary scene, its relationship to melodrama, its “yoking of romance and realism” (16), and other contradictions. “The Sensation Novel and Victorian Theories of Fiction” provides a useful analysis of the genre’s relationship to the Victorian understanding of craft, and how these novels were a “prelude” to the very social changes that would sweep the genre away (72). Later chapters discuss in detail the works of Braddon, Wood, and Collins, before finally examining this brief genre’s place in the grand scheme of literary history. I will probably read the bulk of this book as my starting point before narrowing in on other sources.
James, Henry. The Art of the Novel. New York: Scribner, 1934.
This is a collection of the prefaces James wrote for the “New York Editions” of his novels. Their insight into the art of fiction and the technical aspects of the novel are still considered by many critics to be unparalleled. I am not sure yet if I will need this, but it’s difficult to discuss any 19th-20th Century novels from a craft perspective without bringing in James in some way.
Langland, Elizabeth. Telling Tales: Gender And Narrative Form in Victorian Literature and Culture. Columbus: OSU Press, 2002.
This book examines how gender “enters into and influences narratives” (xiii). In a chapter titled, “Gendered Geographies: the Lady and the Country House in Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White and Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret,” Langland uses readings of Braddon and Collins to examine the “gendered nature of private space in Victorian England,” by focusing on the social relationship embedded in it (xxi). In the following chapter, she then extends this discussion of space as a social process to representations of working class women. I am interested in the relationship between mistress and female servant within the home, as well as the private sphere’s lack of privacy, and am hoping these chapters will shed a bit of light on these themes.
Levine, George. How to Read the Victorian Novel. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2008.
This book has a useful introduction on the Victorian Novel, as well as a chapter titled, “The Sensation Novel and The Woman in White,” which discusses distinctions/similarities between realist and sensation fiction. It provides a good contextual base for me as a reader not well-versed in Victorian fiction.
Lynch, Eve M. "Out of Place: The Masquerade of Servitude in Victorian Literature." Pacific Coast Philology 31.1 (1996): 88-106.
This article begins by arguing that “the literary domestic servant enacts a masquerade that artificially limits penetration into an interior self” (88). She goes on to discuss anxiety about the servant’s place in the home, as well as a fascination with the idea that servants might marry into higher classes. She examines the emergence of the female-centered household in which the mistress oversees chiefly-female servants, creating “an uncanny and unsettling conjunction of mistress and servant” (96). This relates to Lady Audley’s Secret quite nicely in that Lucy is a governess who marries up, leaving Phoebe bitter, as much of society might be. This creates a very “uncanny” similarity between them and “unsettlingly” level mistress-servant relationship between them. The focus on Lady Audley’s material possessions (clothes, jewelry) further underlines the social construction of her superior status as mistress. Phoebe’s masquerade is very slight; we as readers are given a fuller sense of her interior self than we are of the servants in other sensation novels.
McCuskey, Brian. "The Kitchen Police: Servant Surveillance and Middle-Class Transgression." Victorian Literature and Culture
28.2 (2000): 359-357.
This article discusses the real-life concerns over Victorian servants being “the eyes and ears” of the private sphere (359), making it unsurprising that “so many nineteenth-century novels feature servants prominently as snoops, voyeurs, and blackmailers” (360). McCuskey notes, however, that in sensation novels, the revealing of the villain’s secrets serve “a normative, rather than subversive” purpose, “facilitating the restoration of law and order in the community” (362). While most of the article discusses East Lynne and the Moonstone, I think there are elements I can extend to Lady Audley’s Secret, which contradicts the typical surveillance paradigm. While some of Phoebe’s knowledge of Lady Audley is derived by snooping, the rest is clearly confided. Lady Audley also takes an interest in Phoebe’s private life. In this example, the mistress’s life is not the complete center of Phoebe’s; she has her own secrets and ambitions, unlike Joyce in East Lynne, who seems to live only for the household.
Schroeder, Natalie. "Feminine Sensationalism, Eroticism, and Self-Assertion: M.E. Braddon and Ouida." Tulsa Studies in
Women's Literature 7.1 (1988): 87-103.
Shroeder briefly discusses a potential homoeroticism between Lucy and Phoebe, as evidenced by their inappropriately close relationship as mistress/maid and Lady Audley’s claim that she is never sexually attracted to men (91). She points to a scene in which Lucy self-indulgently asks Phoebe to kiss her, as well as her strong reaction to the news that Phoebe is marrying Luke (92). This interpretation of their relationship as almost masturbatory for Lucy adds an interesting wrinkle to my discussion of their dynamic. The rest of the article isn’t particularly useful.
Showalter, Elaine. "Subverting the Feminine Novel: Sensationalism and Feminine Protest." A Literature of Their Own.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977, 153-181.
Showalter’s identification of Lady Audley as someone the female reader could potentially identify/sympathize with is important to my argument. She writes that Lady Audley must end the book in the lunatic asylum, “not only to spare Braddon the unpleasant necessity of having to execute an attractive heroine with whom she in many ways identifies, but also to spare the woman reader the guilt of identifying with a cold-blooded killer” (167). My discussion of Lucy’s characterization through Phoebe hinges on the premise that Braddon cannot characterize Lucy directly in any way that makes her sympathetic. Showalter identifies a second, feminist layer in the text; I feel this is achieved in large part through a second layer of fictional craft, which creates the illusion of plot superseding character, when in reality Lucy is characterized with great depth through omission and her proximate relationship to Phoebe.
Robbins, Bruce. The Servant’s Hand: English Fiction From Below. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986.
This seems to be “the book” on the different roles servants play in the novel. According to Robbins, domestic servants are “the largest single occupational group in nineteenth century England” (Robbins xi). Although the novel of this time period is “the very bastion of realism and the most cooperative witness to literature’s engagement with social change,” novelists in the 19th century still rely on “the much-repeated master-servant tropes and devices” from Elizabethan and Restoration comedy, from Shakespeare and Moliere (xi). This comprehensive study then examines the role of servants as represented through fictional devices, providing chapters on the servant in dialogue, as narrator, as an instrument of plot, etc. Contrary to the norms Robbins discusses, I think Phoebe defies master-servant tropes and offers a fairly realistic look at a working-class female and her options. She has to if she is to accurately represent Lady Audley’s circumstances and provide characterization by proxy.
Trodd, Anthea. Domestic Crime in the Victorian Novel. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989.
The chapter of interest to me in this book is titled, “Household Spies: Servants and Crime.” According to Trodd, “Servants do not in general play prominent roles in Victorian novels; the one area of fiction where they routinely assume high visibility is in plots and sub-plots involving crime” (46). Her subsequent discussion touches briefly on The Moonstone and Aurora Floyd. I was disappointed to discover this chapter, since the argument overlaps with some of the points I initially wanted to make. Because of this, instead of discussing the role servants play in the plot/tension of all sensation novels, I am focusing in specifically on Phoebe and her relationship to Lady Audley. As my thoughts develop, I am straying more and more from the idea of servant surveillance to the characterization of Phoebe and Lucy as dual characters.
Tromp, Marlene, Pamela Gilbert and Aeron and Haynie. Beyond Sensation: Mary Elizabeth Braddon in Context. Albany: State
University of New York Press, 2000.
This collection of critical essays on Braddon contains at least two chapters touching on class issues that may intersect with my paper. In “Marketing Sensation: Lady Audley’s Secret and Consumer Culture,” Katherine Montwieler claims that the book subverts its own “superficial condemnation of class transgressions” through its depiction of materialism and consumer culture (43). In “Spectral Politics: M.E. Braddon and the Spirits of Social Reform,” Eve Lynch addresses how Braddon’s fiction sought to address social issues by exposing, “the laissez-faire individualism and complacency that allowed the wealthy and the middle classes to desert the poor and dependent women in the prosperous mid-century” (235). I am not sure yet how useful these chapters will prove to be.
Voskuil, Lynn. “Acts of Madness: Lady Audley and the Meanings of Victorian Femininity.” Feminist Studies 27.3 (2001): 611-639.
This discussion of Lady Audley’s Secret focuses on the ideas of theatricality and authenticity. Reviews at the time criticized Lady Audley as a “misrepresentation” of women: an “imposter” (622). According to Voskuil, this highlights the Victorian notion that there is an authentic human nature for men and women, creating the basis for the “separate-sphere ideology” and reinforcing that middle-class privelege is based on an inherent superiority (623). Lady Audley challenges these assumptions by being “an actress who exploits conventional understandings of role-playing for her own advantage” (625). She represents not a shared human nature, but an “idiosyncratic gendered self” (626) who combines theatricality with authenticity. What I find most interesting in this piece is a brief section in which the author contradicts Henry James’s declaration that Lady Audley is not a fully-formed character. According to Voskuil, the contradiction between her outer behavior and interior self indicates a depth of character, one driven by “inner passions” (625).