Lady Audley’s Secret - Is Lady Audley Mad? :: Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Mary Elizabeth Braddons peeress Audleys Secret - Is maam Audley Mad?Mary Elizabeth Braddons Lady Audleys Secret was published in 1861 and was a big success a best-seller that sold over hotshot million copies in book form. The protagonist, Helen Maldon - likewise known as Helen Talboys, Lucy Graham and Lady Audley - is a poor childly beautiful woman when she marries the dragoon George Talboys, but his money only lasts for one year of luxury. When he no longer is able to offer her the feeling she always wanted - and now has got used to - she becomes angry and depressed, and George Talboys leaves the country to nip for gold in order to make his young wife with her new-born bilk happy again. Not long after her husband has sailed for Australia, Helen Talboys decides she has had enough of the thudding life story she leads with her father and child and wants to try to find for herself the things she lacks. She sees an opportunity to step up over and she grabs it she leaves her ch ild, changes her name and goes out as a governess. When the wealthy Sir Michael Audley proposes, she accepts and goes from the life as governess to the life of a Lady. The Lady Audley that we get to know is a woman who is sure of what she wants and will not let anyone stop her, which in the book is described as the acts of a madwoman. But is Lady Audley actually insane or simply too ambitious and sure of herself for the Victorian era? Was insanity simply the label society attached to distaff assertion, ambition, self-interest and outrage? In order to discuss the question of Lady Audleys madness, we must first understand the Victorian ideas and beliefs regarding insanity. Insanity was believed more viridity among women than among men and doctors and psychiatrists debated the reason for this. A common view was that women were more threatened to insanity than men because of the instability of their reproductive system (Showalter, p 55), which interfered with their horny control. That female insanity was linked with the biological crises of the female life bike - puberty, pregnancy, childbirth and menopause - during which the female mind was weakened and the symptoms of insanity could emerge, was a common belief (Showalter, p 55). It should be noted that the medical professions were purely for men and no doubt were all these theories made up by men, with little experience of menstruation, pregnancy or menopause.