Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret - Sensation, Genders, and Identity Politics in the Victorian Novel

Aug 26, 2026

Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret (1862) is examined as a Victorian sensation novel that rethinks identities, genders, and domestic ideals by showing how characters violate the era’s prescribed propriety boundaries. Centering on Lady Audley’s nonconforming attempt to move beyond domestic norms through strategic concealment, the article uses gender studies to explain how gendered identities are produced and installed through discursive practices. Braddon’s recognition of gender performativity and fluidity destabilizes gender stability, prompting broader questions about female identity and Victorian identity politics while challenging patriarchal assumptions.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages16

Reading Time40 min

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Abstract

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Introduction

The Sensation Novel and Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Araştırma Makalesi Research Article ISSN 2548-0502 2022; 7(1): 122-136 Sensation, Genders, and Identity Politics in Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret DR. ÖĞR. ÜYESİ KERİM CAN YAZGÜNOĞLU􀀍 Abstract Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret (1862), considered one of the best sensational novels in the Victorian age, offers a new space for re-considering identities, genders, and domestic ideals by demonstrating the transgression of the artificial boundaries established by the Victorian propriety. In doing so, the novel, with its questionings of marriage, home, and being woman and man, focuses on the protagonist Lady Audley’s nonconforming attempt to go beyond the Victorian domestic norms as she wears some masks to hide what she is. In this context, drawing upon gender studies, this article explores how gendered identities are produced and installed as the effects of discursive practices, and how Braddon breaks down the stability of genders in the novel by acknowledging gender performativity and gender fluidity. This destabilization raises broader questions about the female identity and identity politics of the Victorian age. In searching for some answers to these questions, the article scrutinizes how the novel challenges the trenchant patriarchal assumptions about genders and goes beyond hegemonic patriarchy. Keywords: Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley’s Secret, sensation novel, identities, genders, performativity MARY ELIZABETH BRADDON’IN LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET ADLI ROMANINDA SANSASYON, TOPLUMSAL CİNSİYETLER VE KİMLİK POLİTİKASI Öz Viktorya döneminin en iyi sansasyon romanlarından biri olarak kabul edilen Mary Elizabeth Braddon’ın Lady Audley’s Secret (1862), Viktorya dönemi görgü kuralları tarafından inşa edilenyapay sınırların ihlalini göstererek kimlikleri, cinsiyetleri ve eve ait idealleri yeniden düşünmekiçin yeni bir alan sunmaktadır. Bunu yaparken, roman, evlilik, ev, kadın ve erkek olmaya dairsorgulamalarıyla, başkahramanı Lady Audley'in ne olduğunu gizlemek için bazı maskelertakarken Viktorya döneminin eve ait normlarının ötesine geçme konusundaki geleneklereuymayan girişimine odaklanır. Bu bağlamda, toplumsal cinsiyet çalışmalarından yola çıkan bumakale, toplumsal cinsiyete dayalı kimliklerin söylemsel pratiklerin etkileri olarak nasıl üretildiğini ve yerleştirildiğini ve Braddon’ın toplumsal cinsiyet edimselliğini ve toplumsalcinsiyet akışkanlığını kabul ederek romandaki toplumsal cinsiyetlerin istikrarını nasıl yıktığını araştırıyor. Bu istikrarsızlaştırma, Viktorya döneminin kadın kimliği ve kimlik politikaları hakkındaki daha geniş soruları gündeme getirmektedir. Makale, bu sorulara bazı cevaplar * Niğde Ömer Halisdemir Üniversitesi, Batı Dilleri ve Edebiyatları, [kyazgunoglu@ohu.edu.tr](kyazgunoglu@ohu.edu.tr), orcid: 0000-0002-5745-6717 Gönderim tarihi: 04.01.2022 Kabul tarihi: 24.03.2022 ararken, romanın toplumsal cinsiyetlerle ilgili belirgin ataerkil varsayımlara nasıl meydan okuduğunu ve hegemonik ataerkilliğin ötesine nasıl geçtiğini incelemektedir. Anahtar sözcükler: Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley’s Secret, sansasyon roman, kimlikler, toplumsal cinsiyetler, edimsellik INTRODUCTION On 9th May, 1863, an anonymous “’sensation’ sermons, ‘sensation’ magazines, ‘sensation’ pictures, and, reviewer remarked in Literary Times that novels, ‘sensation’ histories, ‘sensation’in fact, sensational amusements of every kind are the only intellectual food upon the British public now fatten”(p. 102) .“Sensationalism” in the 1860s, as this quote indicates, permeated every intellectual debate with the rise of the sensational novel, arguably suggesting that the “sensational” was used as a derogatory term and as an indicator of a new trend in Victorian fiction. The sensational novel in this sense, as Laurie Garrison puts it, is rendered as “a curious phenomenon of the Victorian press”(2011, p. 1) . It is from the start of the debate regarding the sensational novel that

FAQs

How does the article frame Lady Audley’s Secret as a Victorian sensation novel?

It treats the novel as a key product of Victorian sensationalism, arguing that it creates a space for questioning conventional boundaries and propriety in the period’s literary debates.

What approach does the article use to study gender and identity?

It draws on gender studies to examine how gendered identities are produced and installed through discursive practices, and how the novel undermines fixed gender categories.

How does the article explain the novel’s impact on patriarchal assumptions?

It argues that Braddon challenges entrenched patriarchal assumptions about gender and moves beyond hegemonic patriarchy by destabilizing gender stability through performativity and fluidity.

Aug 26, 2026

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