CHAPTER
I
INTRODUCTION
1.1.
Background of Study
In
early
1860s,
especially
in
England,
there
were
many
fictional
novels
were vigorously published and controversially debated. This was the decade when
some serious fictions storied about the historical issues and concerned on the social
classes. One
of
the
famous
fiction
novels
that
were
controversially debated
was
Lady
Audley's Secret
by
Mary
Elizabeth
Braddon.
The
novel
was
written
in
a
decade when the
nobility of
feminine
issues
were
tightly
held. Some improper or
irregular acts of
female in
that era
would be considered as the
form of
insanity. In
that Victorian era, there were much inequality in women's
roles,
status, values, and
culture.
Those
conditions
later
on
bring
up
some
issues
about
women's
struggle
through
the
inequality
that
is built
and
formed
by
the
patriarchal
domination,
which still have its effects in women culture and social life today.
On the other side, the
novel
itself told about story of a woman that showed
much
assertive
behavior
and
attitude, which
brought
many
critics
and
debates
throughout
it.
Some
criticism
considered
it
as
a
form
of
crime,
whether
others
considered
it
as
a
form
of
female constraint
from
the
limitation. There
were
much
patriarchal
constraints
which
were
suffered
by
the
women
in
the
Victorian
era,
such as;
limited right
to
determine their
marriage and culture, limited
freedom
to
choose their own living, social roles and values. And those constraints become the
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