“‘You shall never live to do this,’ she said. ‘I will kill you first. Why have you tormented me so? Why could you not let me alone? What harm had I ever done you that you should make yourself my persecutor, and dog my steps, and watch my looks, and play the spy upon me? Do you want to drive me mad? Do you know what it is to wrestle with a madwoman? No,’ cried my lady, with a laugh, ‘you do not, or you would never—'”(235).
This passage takes place towards the end of chapter XI, when Robert Audley confronts Lady Audley one more time about confessing to what Robert suspects as her conspiracy theory in playing a duel life and killing George Talboys; and, upon ignoring his final offer, he tells Lady Audley that they will fight to death until he gets her to admit to what she has done. This infuriates Lady Audley, and when Robert leaves the room she lets out her real thoughts on how she feels about the altercation that just took place. The sentences in this excerpt are primarily few word questions that provide the reader with a hint, based off the types of questions she’s asking herself, that Robert Audley’s suspicions may actual be future convictions, and that Lady Audley is really out of her mind. “I will kill you first… What harm had I ever done to you that you should make yourself my persecutor, and dog my steps, and watch my looks, and play the spy upon me?” brings the reader into Lady Audley’s mind and allows them to see this dark side of Lady Audley in which she is contemplating killing Robert because she knows that he won’t stop until she gets him to admit it and he knows what she truly did and who she really is. This depicts that Lady Audley does indeed have something to hide, and, furthermore, that she is plagued with craziness when she says “Do you know what it is to wrestle with a madwoman?” and then does a laugh. However, the way it’s written, her laugh is not a normal one but an evil one that attempts to hide her pain and inner suffering. The way the sentences are structured in that they are of Lady Audley asking questions to herself and agonizing about the altercation between her and Robert show that Lady Audley is deeply concerned with Robert and his pursuit of his suspicion and that she is a madwoman that will do anything to hide her secret, and show the true Lady Audley.
you’re mostly talking around this quotation rather than close-reading it. if you reread the sentences around the quotations, you’ll see what i’m talking about–they tend to summarize the quotations rather than commenting on HOW it makes its meaning.