For a few moments in class, we touched on whether readers are to consider Lady Audley the protagonist because it is her name, alone, that shows up in the title. As the book progresses, however, more and more signs point to our lymphatic friend, Robert, being the true protagonist. So, why throw us off with the title? I would think two main reasons, both directly related to the tradition of sensation novels. One, it emphasizes the secret rather than the solving and in turn, the oddity that is a person in a “Lady” position even having secrets or a hidden identity. (The upper class was often assumed to have a better nature than the lower class). The more mysterious and unexpected the premise, the better the sensation novel. And two, it allowed readers to follow the events with an open perspective. Had this book been titled “Robert’s Zany Adventures” or “Robert Audley: Amateur Detective,” reader’s initial focus would have been on Robert instead of the nuances of Lady Audley’s behavior which later help us solve the mystery alongside Robert.

That being said, though the attention should be on Lady Audley, I think readers are meant to root for Robert. Lady Audley certainly does not make herself out to be a sympathetic character. From her reducing the hope of Sir Michael to a mere corpse in the very first chapter to her distasteful treatment of Phoebe to her very character (!) shown to be manipulative and calculated, the Lucy we know, we do not like. So, we are that much more eager to understand the Lucy we do not know, with the help of our amateur detective, of course.

In my reading of Lady Audley’s Secret, there is this controversial issue over whether I feel that Lucy is good or bad.  This may be easy for a lot of people to decide because of all of the things she is willing to do to keep her secret.  When Lucy abandons her old life, she abandons her son.  Even after faking her death, I cannot see how she is able to just leave her son behind.  To be fair, George did abandon them first.  How is Lucy to know that he will come back?  For all she knows, leaving could have been George’s way to escape his old life.  Keeping this in mind, once Lucy does move on, she remarries Sir Michael.  We learned pretty early on that this marriage has been superficial from its beginning.

Keeping the idea that women were not given much power outside the home in mind, abandoning her old lifestyle could have been Lucy’s way of attaining freedom and power.  Maybe being abandoned in a lifestyle of poverty with a son was too much for Lucy to handle, especially when she was unsure of her husband’s return.  Maybe I’m just making excuses for Lucy, but the stresses of being a poor woman with a child were and still are problems.  Lucy could be viewed as a bad person. She does murder, plot, and abandon.  Playing devil’s advocate, I simply see a woman who chooses herself over society’s expectations.  Even when she leaves her son, at least her son is being taken care of.

While I applaud Robert Audley for his ability to see through Lady Audley, I cannot ignore a certain belief of his. The first incident that caught my attention was when Robert notices Lady Audley’s bruised skin around her wrist. Even though she claims that the bruise came from a tightly worn ribbon, Robert tells her that she is telling “childish white lies” (Braddon 123). Robert is like a detective. The truth will come out because of his devotion to George’s disappearance. Readers expect him to be the hero. I admire Robert’s determination to prove that Lady Audley is involved with the disappearance of George Talboys. Her charms do not work on him. He believes that her beauty is only physical. At first, I was sure that Robert was one of my favorite male characters. I liked that he was not like the other men in the novel who are blinded by Lady Audley. However, I soon realized that I should wait to decide how I feel about Robert. There is a scene in the book when Robert remembers “the horrible things that have been done by women, since that day upon which Eve was created to be Adam’s companion…” (Braddon 289). This is only one example out of many. Robert makes plenty more insulting remarks about women throughout the novel.

What is the point of having a character like Robert? I like that he is intelligent, but I dislike that he thinks he is above women. I think that Robert is an important character because he contributes to the suspense that Braddon is trying to create. I think that some would easily label Robert as the protagonist and Lady Audley as the antagonist. But, I think that this is only an easy conclusion to make when one is considering the mystery aspect of the story. I think it is more complicated than this. While all signs point to Lady Audley as being the antagonist, there are some positive qualities that I cannot ignore. She is a brave and determined character. Female readers can count on her to put Robert in his place. He constantly comes across something that he thinks he can use against Lady Audley, but she continues to prove him wrong. She brings out Robert’s anger towards women (something that I enjoy). Also, I have no words to describe her complete power over men. When considering the issue of gender, Lady Audley might be considered a hero.

In chapter 6 of the second volume of Lady Audley’s Secret, the reader hears Robert’s thoughts on various subjects.   He is very contemplative about life, which I think is sprung by his newly made acquaintance with Clara Talboys.  In this chapter, I think Braddon takes some liberties with the narrator by purposely confusing the narrative voice with Robert’s own thoughts.  The narrative voice says things like, “ We are apt to be angry with this cruel hardness in our life,” which sounds like it could be Robert’s thoughts, but it is not in quotations like the rest of his thoughts.   She also utilizes the first person “we” in these interruptions by the narrative voice.  These moments in the text draw the reader in by asking the reader questions and including the reader in the discussion of the narrative.

The style and the topics discussed in this chapter also reveal characteristics of sensation novels.  Sensation fiction reintroduced the questioning of fate and the meaning of life.  In this chapter we see Robert questioning fate.  His mind wonders as he contemplates what his life will be like now that he has met Clara and agreed to include her in his investigation into George Talboys’s disappearance.  He also, I think rather comically, thinks about marriage and how you never know who fate will bring together.  He exclaims, “that the woman on the kerb-stone yonder…may be the woman…who could make me a happy man.”   I found his thoughts on marriage entertaining but also interesting because his views are normally something I think one would think would be women’s thoughts not men’s.  Braddon seems concerned with men’s views on marriage as well as women’s, as at the very beginning of the novel we see Sir Michael’s view that marriage should be for love and then Lady Audley squashes this view, and then Robert’s thoughts here.  Fate is further discussed in the narration of the “human machine.”  The narrator discusses how the “cruel hardness in our life” is that fate or life “knows no stoppage or cessation.”  These contemplative moments in the narration and in Robert are characteristics of sensation fiction, connect the reader to text, and give insight into the characters.

In Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret, Lucy spends much of the novel going to great extents to protect her secret. The reader is prompted to the truth behind Lucy’s façade early on in the investigation. Consequently, the reader must consider – how bad is Lucy? How much should the reader see her as merely an opportunistic gold digger? While it seems that these terms would apply quite well to Lucy, is it really Lucy’s fault? In other words, beyond marriage what other recourse of upward social mobility does Lucy have? Throughout the novel, Lucy is defined by marriage. At the beginning of the work, she is getting married. Furthermore, throughout the novel George is investigating her past and suspects a hidden past and marriage. The most telling example of Lucy’s complete reliance on marriage to the point of almost trusting it as a career occurs in the chapter entitled “My Lady Tells the Truth”. She remembers, “I had learnt that which in some indefinite manner every other schoolgirl learns sooner or later- I learned that my ultimate faith in life depended upon my marriage, and I concluded that if I was indeed prettier than my schoolfellows, I ought to marry better than any of them” (298). So, despite the desperate fury Lady Audley exhibits (256), Lucy was ambitious. This quality certainly would not have been faulted in a man. In fact, it was not faulted in George for his ambition to find Lady Audley’s secret nor was ambition faulted in his gold prospecting in Australia. Ultimately, what other option does Lucy have? Could it not be that she is simply ambitious, and marriage is her only means by which to climb socially?