Female Supremacy on the Threshold
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2021-08-25
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en
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Mary Elizabeth Braddon is known for her social commentary on Victorian society. However, Robert Wolff and Eve Lynch argue that the criticism she received regarding her liaison with John Maxwell caused Braddon to switch from protesting social conventionalities to writing Sensation Fiction.
This thesis investigates the social commentary in Braddon’s early sensation novels and focuses on liminal spaces. It answers the following question: how do Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s sensation novels, Lady Audley’s Secret, Aurora Floyd and Eleanor’s Victory, use liminal spaces to comment on contemporary society with regard to gender and femininity?
The close reading applied to these novels shows how Braddon subverted the Victorian feminine ideal by giving the women in her novels power and authority over liminal spaces such as windows, doorways, and the railway. Thus, it may be concluded that, despite the criticism she received, Braddon indeed delivered social commentary in her early sensation novels.
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