Arguably, the most interesting detail about Aubrey Beardsley's "The Repentance of Mrs. ****" (seen below) has nothing to do with the visual work itself. Rather, what is most intriguing is the apparent censorship of the female name in the drawing's title. The reason for this is twofold; primarily for the censorship, but also for the unknown repentance. Beardsley does not provide us with the sin for which the female protagonist is repentant. Indeed, the image itself does not even tell us explicitly who the main subject is.

     The exclusion of the subject’s name is curious, because the asterisks suggest that the woman’s sins for which she must repent are so abhorrent that she must be censored out of existence. This would explain the appearance of many other figures within the drawing. They could perhaps be ensuring she pays her dues in a proper way, or comforting her from the harsh punishment meted out by a dominant patriarchal force. In the image, the majority of the characters appear to be female, with only one whose gender is ambiguous. This suggests that the sin committed was related to the subject’s inherent status as a feminine figure.

            Trying to establish what the figure praying is repentant for is difficult still due to how Beardsley has presented her. In contrast to many of his other works and the works of other artists in The Yellow Book, nobody in this particular drawing is nude. With the Victorian ideals in place and the outrage from reviews of this volume, it is peculiar that a woman is repentant for something that is not directly related to sex.