선정소설과 여성의 육체: 메리 엘리자베스 브래던의 『오들리 부인의 비밀』 = Victorian Sensation Novel and Female Body: Mary Elizabeth Braddon`s Lady Audley`s Secret

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This paper examines the representation of female body in victorian Sensation Novel focusing on female body/maternity/madness in Mary Elizabeth Braddon`s Lady Audley`s Secret. Lucy Audley`s body is represented in the contradictory discourse on woman in which woman is figured as either demon or angel. The iconography of angel and demon reflects the fear which pervaded middle-class culture that the demonic woman would be the threat to the mainteenance of a healthy, middle-class society. Lucy Audley`s body is also represented in tenos of the contemporary medical discourse in which woman`s behaviour is related to the unstable nature of the female body` the instability of Lucy Audley is most evident when it becomes a maternal body and the text explores many aspects of the construction of maternal insanity. The text leads the reader to evaluate the discourse of maternal insanity not as a matter of biological organization but as that of legal, social and economic position. The process of containment of Lucy Audley`s diseased body vividly shows association between madness and the feminine which was pervasive in the nineteenth century culture. It dramatizes the contemporary thought that the diseased female body should be constrained and punished by the patriarchal order of Victorian society. However, her body is refigured in a new vein of the text and Braddon leads the reader to explore the subversive meanings embedded in the text. Braddon goes further than criticising Victorian constructions of female body and femininity she examines the work done by the legal and medical discourse in protecting class boundaries Braddon`s representation of female body is used not as a mere instrument of sensational effect but as a significant device to lead the reader to reconsider victorian discourses on female body.