Introduction

82
Vanessa Mangione
perused by ‘snake’ Levison” (35). This becomes apparent when Levison breaks
her cross on her necklace that had been given to her by her mother. Her mother
gave it to her as a talisman on her deathbed and told her to look at it when in
“distress, or in need of counsel” (17). Not only can the breaking of the cross by
Levison be seen as a premonition of things to come, but A. Kaplan argues that the
“breaking signals Isabel’s aloneness and vulnerability to the ‘snake’ Levison” and
that he is “ready to step into the gap left by her mother’s death” (36). Accordingly,
she points out that “right from the start she experiences a merging sensation with
Sir Levison” (36). The Byronic hero evokes unknown desires in Isabel and she
succumbs to his charm completely, as the following paragraph demonstrates:
He spoke in a tone of thrilling gentleness, gratifying to the ear but dangerous
to the heart. Lady Isabel glanced up, and caught his eyes fixed upon her
with the deepest tenderness, a language hers had never yet encountered. A
vivid blush rose to her cheek, her eyelids fell, and her timid words died
away in silence. (19)
Levison is able to arouse sexual desires in her that she has never experienced with
Carlyle. The difficulties to favour an institutionalised for a passionate love are thus
anticipated.
4.2.1 The Fading Angel in the House
When Isabel is left homeless, penniless and dependant on relatives who do not
want and dislike her, she marries Carlyle, as he is able to offer her a stable home
that was once her own, East Lynne. Yet, when he proposes, Isabel is not sure if
she can accept his offer:
It was a perplexing debate that Lady Isabel held with herself in the solitude
of her cambers … Isabel was little more than a child, and as a child she reasoned,
looking neither far nor deep: the shallow, palpable aspect of affairs
alone presenting itself to her view. That Mr Carlyle was not of rank equal to
her own, she scarcely remembered: East Lynne seemed a very fair settlement
in life, and in point of seize, beauty, and importance, it was superior
to the home she was now in. She forgot that her position at East Lynne as
Mr Carlyle’s wife, would not be what it had been as Lord Mount Severn’s
daughter; she forgot that she would be tied to a quiet home, shut out from
the great world, from the pomps and vanities to which she was born. She
liked Mr Carlyle much, she liked to be with him, she experienced pleasure
in conversing with him; in short, but for that ill-omened fancy which had