eys Secret articulates womens experience and the gender anxiety existing in 19thcentury society. Appropriately, the novel focuses on marriage and the subjugation of women into idealroles of domesticity. In this patriarchal society where marriage is the foundation of a nation, women hadduties not rights. The novel begins by introducing the typical English country house, Audley Court: Anoble place; inside as well as out, a noble place a house in which you incontinently lost yourself ifever you were so rash as to go about it alone (Braddon 8). It is unsettling to know that Audley Court,which was once a convent, is now a respectable aristocratic house, whereby Braddon parallels the ladyof a country house to a nun, who is confined to the walls of a convent. Braddon suggests that this housecannot be transgressed, for if women dare attempt it, they will lose themselves. Audley Court is thedesignated space belonging to women in this society. In addition, Braddon also presents the languageof madness (Braddon 15) in the first chapter. From the beginning, Braddon puts forth only twopossible choices for women: they will have to choose between the country house or the insane asylum;both, however, are places of confinement. Consequently, the conflict between the actual female experience and the domestic, private,angelic feminine ideal (Pykett 6) is one with which the women of the novel struggle. At the heart ofLady Audleys Secret lies contradictions and instabilities about womens roles in marriage and society,and the possibility of transgressing the domestic ideal. The characters of Phoebe, Alicia, Clara and LadyAudley all embody contradictions between the domestic ideal which encloses them, and thetransgressive fantasy which promises to free them from the confinement that structures the lives ofupper-middle-class women (Langland 3). The piercing reality, however, is that their roles withinmarriage and society cannot be transgressed. II Clar...
