Armadale Essay

Beauty can be a powerful literary tool if used by a character whom is either desired by another or is said to be authentically aesthetically pleasing to the eye. This form of beauty as a means to get what one wants is on display in Armadale by Wilkie Collins. In this work, Collins uses the constantly described impeccable beauty of the main antagonist, Lydia Gwilt, to build the character into the conniving creature of deception that she becomes and through the manipulation of others is able to skew the otherwise tainted views of her character. From the time Lydia Gwilt is introduced in the first chapter of “Book the Third,” to the end of the story, her beauty is described. This exquisite beauty Lydia possess enables her to do many deceitful things and get away with them solely based on how she looks. Starting with the characters
Although her beauty is briefly described by Oldershaw by saying that she has “good looks” and she doesn’t look a “day over thirty,” this is just the first of many mentions of the vast beauty she possesses. Every character in this story seems to mention something about how Lydia looks even the character herself. Within Lydia’s response to Oldershaw, she speaks of her own beauty when she says “If you really want to be useful, try and find out some quieting draught to keep me from grinding my teeth in my sleep. I shall break them one of these nights; and then what will become of my beauty, I wonder?” (162). As previously mentioned, this statement shows that Lydia herself, along with the other characters, is aware of the beauty she possesses. In conjunction with the stern attitude toward Oldershaw, this passage about her beauty implies that she can use her asset of beauty to get away with things other cannot. As the story unwinds, it is clear to see that this passage defines everything that the character of Lydia Gwilt is and