Introduction

Lord Byron’s Descendants 85
weak, feverish, in a state of partial delirium; and she hastily took up the idea
that Archibald Carlyle had never loved her, that he admired her and made
her his wife in his ambition, but that his heart had been given to Barbara
Hare.
A pretty state of excitement she worked herself into as she lay there,
jealousy and fever, ay, and love too, playing pranks with her brain … her
pallid cheeks were burning with a red hectic, and her eyes glistened with fever.
(180)
Again, the state Isabel is kept in is clearly criticised by Wood. If the people around
her had some confidence in her and her abilities, she would have the chance to
grow up and would not work herself into such a fit. However, there is nothing
else for her than to lie down, and as a result, her jealousy runs wild. A Kaplan
points out the dilemma in which Lady Isabel is situated within the symbolic. While
she completes Carlyle’s world, she herself is quite incomplete. She is even deprived
of the action and power of her domestic role. Thus, “she is left in a position
of lack and as the object of the male gaze [Carlyle/Levison] and of the jealous
female gaze [Barbara/Cornelia]” (38).
Isabel’s doctor recommends that she should be send to France to recover, as
he is concerned for her life. Isabel, who sees the sending away as a means for
Carlyle to be with Barbara, is anxious to leave home and wishes to at least take her
children with her, as she cannot stand the idea to be parted from them. Cornelia,
however, denies her that wish. She makes her feel guilty about the expenses Carlyle
had to spend, and since Isabel is already a high cost factor, she suggests Isabel
should be content and stop being presumptuous. Thus, miserable, jealous, and
lonely Isabel leaves for France, where she meets upon Sir Levison. A. Kaplan
notes that Isabel’s longing to take her children with her originates in a “fear of
separation, individuation and emotional autonomy” which she is not used to.
Consequently, Isabel’s repressed desire for Levison quickly emerges again and he
fills the emotional gap left by her isolation. Ann Kaplan continues to argue, “her
desire forced itself upon her physically, in a way rare in fictional representations of
female characters” since “the novel locates Isabel within the power relations of
patriarchy, she cannot consciously accept herself as a desiring subject” (37). Consequently,
her desire expresses itself through her body:
After an interval, there appeared another, a tall, handsome, gentlemanly
man. Her eyes fell upon him; and – what caused it that caused every nerve
in her frame to vibrate, every pulse to quicken? Whose form was it that was
thus advancing, and changing the monotony of her mind into tumult? It
was one of whom she was soon to find had never been entirely forgotten
[Captain Levison]. (205)