Disillusionment in the English Novel

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Disillusionment in the English Novel “It lay low down in a hollow, rich with fine old timber and luxuriant pastures... At the end of this avenue there was an old arch and a clock-tower, with a stupid bewildering clock, which had only one hand... Through this arch you walked straight into the gardens of Audley Court” (7). Lady Audley’s Secret “I believe rather that we may walk unconsciously in an atmosphere of crime, and breathe none the less freely. I believe that we may look into the smiling face of a murderer, and admire its tranquil beauty” (124). Lady Audley’s Secret While the English novel as a genre is painstakingly varied, stretching from Dafoe’s introduction with Robinson Crusoe up to our modern publications, the English novel, unlike its predecessors, worked to create a “fullness” of meaning, apart from the previous singularity and specificity conveyed in most literary works. Similarly, while there is much variation, the English novel, as a generality, began to utilize principles of realism in order to shed light upon previously unquestionable aspects of society, such as gender, class, etc. There was, too, the shift away from romanticism and related idealized thought, which created a multidimensionality throughout the English novel, concerning its characters, settings, meanings, etc. Essentially, throughout the growth of the English novel, layers of societal paradigms were questioned, challenged, and peeled away, revealing (or attempting to reveal) a new perspective on these particularities. The quotes listed above, as well as several other instances within Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret, undo idealizations concerning gender and class. Because the novel’s introduction into English society (and its subsequent popularity) both benefited from and perpetuated the rise of the middle class, the previously unquestioned aspects of society,
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