《奥德利夫人的秘密》小说读后感

美国Assignment代写范文:“《奥德利夫人的秘密》小说读后感”，这篇论文主要描述的是在伊丽莎白布雷登的小说《奥德利夫人的秘密》自上市以来便成为了当时最为畅销的书籍之一，小说主要讲述的就是露茜、罗伯特与乔治三者之间的爱情纠纷，在乔治与海伦的斗争当中，以乔治落入井中收尾，罗伯特则以此作为把柄，开始展开对海伦的追求。

Mary Elizabeth Braddon's "Lady Audley's Secret" was published in 1861 and was a big success: a best-seller that sold over one million copies in book form. The protagonist, Helen Maldon - also known as Helen Talboys, Lucy Graham and Lady Audley - is a poor young 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 life she always wanted - and now has got used to - she becomes angry and depressed, and George Talboys leaves the country to dig for gold in order to make his young wife with her new-born baby happy again. Not long after her husband has sailed for Australia, Helen Talboys decides she has had enough of the boring life she leads with her father and child and wants to try to find for herself the things she lacks. She sees an opportunity to start over and she grabs it: she leaves her child, 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 really insane or simply too ambitious and sure of herself for the Victorian era? Was "insanity" simply the label society attached to female assertion, ambition, self-interest and outrage?

In order to discuss the question of Lady Audley's madness, we must first understand the Victorian ideas and beliefs regarding insanity. Insanity was believed more common among women than among men and doctors and psychiatrists debated the reason for this. A common view was that women were more vulnerable to insanity than men because of the "instability of their reproductive system" (Showalter, p 55), which interfered with their emotional control. That female insanity was linked with the biological crises of the female life cycle - 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 strictly for men and no doubt were all these theories made up by men, with little experience of menstruation, pregnancy or menopause. Poverty was also one of the many believed causes for insanity. (And all of this makes me surprised there were any sane women during the Victorian age!)

There were strict rules for how a woman should act and behave and any deviations from those were considered strange. The stereotypical Victorian "angel" was a beautiful and loving woman: timid, gentle, innocent and full of love for her family and friends, and she had not many more worries than which dress to use for the next dinner-party. Lady Audley is all this, but still a treacherous murderer and bigamist. This goes against the Victorian beliefs about women as passive and submissive and critics did not find it possible for a woman to be as wicked as Lady Audley:

In drawing her, the authoress may have intended to portray a female Mephistopheles; but, if so, she would have known that a woman cannot fill such a part. (Willis)

Already in volume one of the novel, we are told that there is more to Lady Audley than meets the eye: the pre-Raphaelite portrait, that she keeps locked up in her chambers "shows sinister aspects of Lady Audley's personality that are not visible to those who meet her in person" (Gross).

Lady Audley is indeed a criminal, but what is the reason for her criminal acts? She, or Helen Talboys, can be seen as a victim of the Victorian society, where a woman was dependent on her husband for financial support. Not being allowed to take responsibility for her own life, Helen's anger turns to criminality: left without a husband, without money and in complete misery she turned to a life of deception because it was the only way she thought she could bring happiness back into her life. She knows from early in life that her ultimate fate depended upon her marriage and she is determined to marry a wealthy man. Her actions are inexcusable, but I can understand what lies behind them. She is independent and goes after what she wants, regardless of whom she might hurt and she admits that she cares for no one except herself. When she finds herself in a desperate situation, she does not grow desperate. She seems very intelligent and cool when executing the things she feels necessary to protect herself: bigamy, murder and arson.

But is she mad? What is mad about a woman who flees from a situation that has no freedom of mobility? I believe that you have to look for the answer to her actions in her past. The belief that madness could be inherited from mothers to daughters and that she because of this eventually would go mad drove her to extremes. Surely one big influence on Helen Talboys was being told that her mother had gone insane after giving birth to her, and if she had never found out about this, perhaps her life would not have been as tragic as it was. Since the beliefs of the time was that insanity was hereditary, she was just waiting for the madness to show: "...the hidden taint I had sucked in with my mother's milk" (Braddon, p 312) and "the only inheritance I had to expect from my mother was - insanity!" (Braddon, p 278). The belief that insanity was inheritable can also be seen in Doctor Mosgrave's opinion on Lady Audley: "The lady is not mad; but she has the hereditary taint in her blood" (Braddon, p 301). Everything Lady Audley does is perfectly calculated and she always has an answer for and a way out of everything. She is not crazy, she is cruel. She is as a cold-hearted and manipulating person, but tries to justify all her evils by saying that she is mad and only uses madness as an excuse for her cold, calculated actions. Doctor Mosgrave agrees with me on this: "She has the cunning of madness, with the prudence of intelligence. --- She is dangerous" (Braddon, p 301).

I do not think that there are any real instances of insanity or madness in the novel, since Lady Audley's acts of desperation are carried out only to prevent her husband from finding out her secret. If he would find out, she would lose the only thing that she cared about, i.e. money and status. Her strivings to rise from poor to rich can be understood and she is surely not the first to leave her past behind to start over, hoping for a better chance this time around.

From time to time we all do things that others see as irrational and stupid, but - thank God - we are nowadays not likely to be locked up in a "madhouse" because of that. We know more how the human mind works and are not bound by stereotypes and "rules for behaviour" the way the Victorians were. Helen Talboys/Lady Audley is a criminal and not a madwoman, and a more suitable place for her to spend her last days would have been a prison and not an asylum. I think Robert Audley says it very well: "Who has not been, or is to be, mad in some lonely hour of life?" (Braddon, p 321).

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