Close Reading: Beauty as a Weapon

 “The rain had ceased, and the cold spring sunshine was glittering upon the windows. Lady Audley dressed herself rapidly but carefully. I do not say that even in her supremest hour of misery she still retained her pride in her beauty. It was not so; she looked upon that beauty as a weapon, and she felt that she had now double need to be well armed. She dressed herself in her most gorgeous silk; a voluminous robe of silvery, shimmering blue, that made her look as if she had been arrayed in moonbeams. She shook out her hair into feathery showers of glittering gold; and with a cloak of white cashmere about her shoulders, went down-stairs into the vestibule” (287).

This paragraph is written after Lady Audley attempts to burn down the Castle Inn with Robert Audley inside.

The most important word in this passage is “weapon” because it shows that she is no longer just a girl who happens to be beautiful but she now knows she can use this beauty to her advantage and as a weapon. This word portrays Lady Audley as a mysterious and dangerous woman. The most unexpected word is “pride” because by now readers have lost sympathy for Lady Audley and all the misery that she has caused. Therefore the word pride is the opposite of what Lady Audley would be associated with. I would say there is a pretty evenly spread amongst verbs, adjectives, and nouns in the passage, and a lot of descriptive language.

The sentences are all fairly reasonable lengths however the last sentence is longer. This sentence describes how she finally shakes out her hair and heads down to the lobby. The syntax is rather ornate because it uses descriptive language to describe her beauty such as: “Voluminous robe of silvery, shimmering blue…She shook out her hair into feathery showers of glittering gold”. There are two cases of alliteration in the passage, “silvery, shimmering”, and, “glittering gold,” which is used to describe her dress and her hair. This passage features a simile, “…made her look as if she had been arrayed in moonbeams, “ and metaphor, “She shook out her hair into feathery showers of glittering gold.” The figurative language is consistent throughout the passage because it describes her beauty, and her perfect hair. This feature in the passage is very similar to how Lady Audley was first introduced in the beginning of the novel. However it is ironic because she is now using this beauty as a weapon. In the beginning however there is less figurative language because it just introduces her. The figurative language is neither surprising nor weird; it makes her sound beautiful, as though she wrote it herself.