{"id":400,"date":"2014-10-16T13:14:27","date_gmt":"2014-10-16T17:14:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/?p=400"},"modified":"2014-10-16T13:14:27","modified_gmt":"2014-10-16T17:14:27","slug":"lady-audleys-melodrama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/2014\/10\/16\/lady-audleys-melodrama\/","title":{"rendered":"Lady Audley’s Melodrama"},"content":{"rendered":"

The dictionary definition of “melodrama” is “a sensational dramatic piece with exaggerated characters and exciting events intended to appeal to the emotions.” This mostly aligns with my pre-conceived notions of the term, although I’ve rarely heard the term used in real life. I’ve mostly heard the term used in its adjective form–e.g. a teenaged girl who just got in a fight with her boyfriend and spends hours crying about it is regarded as melodramatic by her mom. The most melodramatic aspect of Lady Audley’s Secret is Lady Audley’s character. The descriptions of her facial features and reactions what Robert Audley says are what make her so melodramatic. For example, when Robert, who she believes to have died, appears in front of her, “her brain [reels], her heart [stops] beating” and she crouches down against a wall “…as if she would have made a tomb for herself in the shadow of that sheltering brickwork” (291). These very exaggerated descriptions of Lady Audley’s actions make the scene even more melodramatic than it already was, with Robert Audley having thwarted Lady Audley’s murder attempt and triumphantly showing up at Audley Court to finally expose her secret. The movie\u00a0Titanic<\/em>\u00a0could be considered a melodrama, namely the scene in which Jack dies as he promises Rose that “he’ll never let go.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The dictionary definition of “melodrama” is “a sensational dramatic piece with exaggerated characters and exciting events intended to appeal to the emotions.” This mostly aligns with my pre-conceived notions of the term, although I’ve rarely heard the term used in real life. I’ve mostly heard…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":880,"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\/400"}],"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\/880"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":421,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400\/revisions\/421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/guiltypleasures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}