Beyond bigamy: Mary Elizabeth Braddon's attempts to challenge and change expectations of the middle class Victorian woman

The novels of Mary Elizabeth Braddon reflect a revolutionary perspective on woman's role in society, and although the novels are enjoyable to read, their female characters convey a caution to women readers through their refusal to accept gender-coded expectations placed on them by male-dominated Victorian society. The need for Braddon's fictional characters to act a certain part is an abiding theme in many of her books, and she often wrote about women who had to don a mask or act fraudulently in order to fit into the roles society expected of them. Robert Lee Wolff, her primary biographer notes, "[Braddon] suffered at the hands of Victorian society and loathed its hypocrisies and cruelties. These she taught herself to satirize so skillfully that her readers need not see her doing it. Even friendly critics failed to note that she was experimenting, innovating, developing, improving, changing" (8). Braddon's sensational texts deserve to be studied for the rebellion they reflect; these novels asked crucial questions and projected ideals that challenged the Victorian status quo with respect to woman's place in society. The fact that Braddon's books were in high demand suggests that her writing spoke to her predominantly female readers who were not entirely happy with their lot in life and modeled for them means to push against the boundaries of narrowly acceptable conduct in Victorian society. An analysis of her work also invites us to focus on her search for woman's voice; oftentimes, Victorian patriarchy silenced that voice, but the struggle of Braddon's female characters as they rebel against silencing constitutes the center of many of her stories.