19세기 후반 전문가 계층의 대두: 『오들리 부인의 비밀』을 중심으로

Abstract

It has been generally agreed that the rise of the novel has a great deal to do with the rise of the new middle-class, representing their world view and catering to their tastes. The first leading characters in the novels of its infant stage were not the noble men with a title but gentlemen who could be broadly defined as men of possession without profession. As the Victorian age was advancing towards its maturity, new type of gentlemen endowed with the virtues of industry came into being, replacing the morally and economically bankrupt land-owning class. With Lady Audley’s Secret, novels begin to be peopled with men with profession, who are more apt to be called bourgeois than traditional gentlemen. These new men of professional knowledge form a tight homosocial bond of their own, the solidarity of which is maintained and reinforced through the exclusion and suppression of women. Robert Audley, the “listless, dawdling, indifferent, irresolute” nephew and heir-presumptive of Sir Michael, transforms himself to the paragon of the Victorian society: a lawyer, a husband, and a father―a patriarchal professional―by playing the role of detective officer and placing Lady Audley under surveillance and control. Robert is not alone when he diagnoses Lady Audley as mad and prescribes a live burial in an asylum for her. It is the collusion of him with other professional men, such as Dr. Mosgrave, Dr. Dawson, a barrister named Wilmington, and even the nameless Pre-Raphaelite painter that confines women within the female virtue of obedience. In short, Robert establishes his own identity as a professional man at the expense of a woman’s right to self-achievement.