<\/p>\n
Recap of class on Thursday, October 2nd<\/sup><\/p>\n By Kevin Mallon<\/p>\n To begin class on Thursday, we discussed and analyzed the first chapter of Lady Audley\u2019s secret. We first analyzed the first paragraph, during which one student pointed out that the very first sentence ends with the word \u201cit\u201d, which as a class we agreed created curiosity. We also made a note of the strange use of personification in the phrase \u201cinquisitive cows,\u201d and how it was little things like that that added an eerie and mysterious feel to the beginning of the novel. Other points that added to this mood were the oak trees shutting out the landscape, as well as the clock tower with only one hand.<\/p>\n We next discussed the use of the second person address and how it puts the reader directly in the story, which made a nice transition into our class analysis of the genre of the novel, \u201csensation fiction.\u201d Several students suggested that sensation fiction would be extremely detailed especially in descriptions involving the five sense, helping the reader \u201cfeel\u201d the sensations that the characters would. It was also suggested that perhaps the term \u201csensation\u201d did not necessarily refer to physical sensation but emotional, and that perhaps books categorized by this genre are extremely relatable. We also discussed how a story in this genre would not be expected to be written in the first person, as it would be limiting on the sensations with which the reader might connect or feel. Another student entertained the idea that perhaps there would be less thought in sensation fiction, and much more \u201cfeeling\u201d.<\/p>\n The discussion then changed pace, beginning with two questions: Who is Lady Audley? What is left out of the story? After establishing that Lucy Graham and Lady Audley are in fact the same person, we discuss how this jump from Lucy to Lady may have something to do with her secret as mentioned in the title. As a class we then analyzed her appearance, biography, and character traits. In terms of her appearance we described her as pretty, having a sweet voice, blue eyes, and blonde curls. Under her biography we mentioned that she was poor, came from London, and she is a teacher. We listed her having the following character traits: accomplished, generous, charming, light-hearted, contented, and likeable.<\/p>\n Having created this description, we then looked a little deeper and found some parts that did not exactly make sense, or sounded a little off. For instance, the author describes her as \u201cseeming\u201d to take joy, and \u201capparently\u201d enjoying the admiration. Use of such words suggests that although it looks that way, it may not really be the case. How she \u201cdrew the hatred and envy of her sex\u201d also seems a little strange, for if she is as nice and well liked as she seems to be described, there doesn\u2019t seem to be any reason for her sex to hate her.<\/p>\n Finally, we looked for glimmers of Lady Audley\u2019s interiority in her interactions towards the later end of the chapter. For instance we looked at how taken aback she was when she learned Sir Michael wanted to marry her, and whether this was legitimate surprise or modesty. Further we discussed how her physical reaction assures us that she is definitely experiencing some emotion, which she may be experiencing is not perfectly clear to the reader. The other important interaction we analyzed was Sir Michael\u2019s proposal. Her reactions indicated possible guilt, panic, or indifference. We as a class were somewhat befuddled by her statement: \u201cI do not love anyone in this world.\u201d We wondered if this perhaps meant she loved someone who is no longer in this world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Recap of class on Thursday, October 2nd By Kevin Mallon To begin class on Thursday, we discussed and analyzed the first chapter of Lady Audley\u2019s secret. We first analyzed the first paragraph, during which one student pointed out that the very first sentence ends…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":875,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/875"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":359,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358\/revisions\/359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}