Lady Audley's Unconscious Mind

Even though Lady Audley attempts to solidify her role in society as a wife, her unconscious mind, the id, is greatly influenced and altered by her childhood-rooted feelings of jealousy and lower standing. She experiences momentary mental instability, not insanity, while striving for a better life than the one she is dealt. Although she experiences intervals of what could be considered possible insanity, such as when “she was obliged to place the flaming tallow candle very close to the lace furbelows” (Braddon 276), Lady Audley does not consciously leave the candle near the furbelows to start the fire, which is conveyed with the use of the word obliged. She experiences a temporary loss of control, where the id takes over because she is frightened

and fearing for the future that she has carefully set forth. As a poor female child, the constant sense of inferiority and jealously Lady Audley has experienced has altered her id, making it briefly reckless while seeking the pleasures that money and status could bring.

This continuous desire for more has upset the balance in Lady Audley’s mind as she is trying to preserve her future and secrets. Freud addresses the fact that “an idea can be sufficiently intense to provoke a lively motor act…and at the same time not intense enough to become conscious” (Freud 1936, 223) which materializes in Lady Audley due to her upbringing. Another instance where Lady Audley’s id is present is when she speaks to Phoebe saying “in a cold, hard voice ‘Get up, fool, idiot, coward!” (Braddon 278) as if Lady Audley is no longer the temperate woman that she has presented herself to be. There is a direct representation of the id in her looks and voice because she is no longer the angel, but a devil that demands to satisfy her desire for wealth that is established through her jealousy. The feelings she experiences as a child satisfies “the rule for the emotional disturbance…to precede the appearance of the somatic symptom or to follow it immediately” (Freud 1936, 224) which materializes in Lady Audley as she speaks and commits crimes in order to ensure the secrecy of her

identity. Although Lady Audley says she is “a madwoman” (Braddon 294), she does so following with the reason that it is because she is threatened with exposure. Lady Audley does not mean that she is mad with insanity, but with the fear that her secret identity and lineage of her mother who is in a mental institute would be known. Even though there are times of brief instability, it does not impact her unconscious as a whole. It is the need for self-preservation and an imbalance in the mind from the damage she experiences as a youth that ultimately leads her down this path.
Furthermore, the ego is another aspect of the mind that is important that balances the superego and the id in Lady Audley, however, the constant pull of the superego and the id in separate directions are creating a split in her mind that allows for Lady Audley’s ego to be calculating and cunning.

As Lady Audley is examined, the doctor finds “no evidence of madness in anything that she has done” (Braddon 321) because all of Lady Audley’s actions in her life have been for a reason. Freud states that “when an idea immediately produces lively somatic consequences, this implies that…it flows off into the paths concerned in these consequences” (Freud 1936, 224), explaining that it is the ego of Lady Audley that is weighing her options of how to gain the status and wealth that she yearns for. Lady Audley’s upbringing has changed her ego into a cunning and calculating machine because her constant desires have impacted her decision-making process. She employs the challenges she has experienced and channels them into intelligence and ways that can advance her in society. She finds a happy medium within her superego and id by having “the cunning of madness, with the prudence of intelligence” (Braddon 323), which symbolizes her ego throughout the story. As a woman with this ability, “she is dangerous” (Braddon 323) because no other woman has presented these qualities, meaning it would be harmful to the power and control of men. Even though “there is a splitting of the mind into two

relatively independent portions” (Freud 1936, 227) in Lady Audley, where her id temporarily prevails over her superego, her unconscious as a whole is not insane. Lady Audley’s ego brings her unconscious back into balance, which creates a person that society views as dangerous because she has the intelligence and willingness to go after the wealth she wants. Although Lady Audley is perceived as a woman that is crazy and should be in a madhouse, she is just a person fighting for the wealth and status that she has been denied due to her gender and upbringing.
All that Lady Audley wishes for in life is for lasting comfort and prosperity, which she finally thought she achieved when marrying Mr. Audley. Because of her constant desire for wealth and status in society, which is caused by the jealously and inferiority she develops in her early youth, Lady Audley’s unconscious is altered, changing her superego, id, and ego. In spite of her temporary moments of mental instability, which can be accounted for in the alteration of her unconscious, her ego and unconscious as a whole is not insane, because mental unsteadiness does not mean insanity. Even though Freud believed that Lady Audley’s confession would free her from all her turmoil and early grief, it ended up being her downfall, making her lose all the wealth and status she has been trying to achieve in her life.