THE WOMAN IN WHITE (NOVEL)

'''The Woman in White''' is an epistolary novel written by Wilkie Collins in 1859, serialized in 1859-1860, and first published in book form in 1860. It is considered to be among the first mystery novels and is widely regarded as one of the first (and finest) in the genre of 'sensation novels'.

Contents

Plot introduction

Discussion

The role of women

Adaptations

External links

Plot introduction

The story begins when the hero, art master Walter Hartright, encounters a mysterious woman dressed all in white on a moonlit road in Hampstead. She is in a state of confusion and distress, and Hartright helps her to find her way back to London. In return, she warns him against a certain (unnamed) baronet, "a man of rank and title". Immediately after they part, Hartright learns that she may have escaped from an asylum.
He goes to Cumberland to take up a position as art tutor at Limmeridge House to two young women: Marian Halcombe and her wealthy half-sister, Laura Fairlie. He finds to his amazement that the story of the woman in white may be entangled with the lives of the two sisters. As a further complication, Walter and Laura fall rapidly in love. But she is already engaged, by her father's wish, to a man named Sir Percival Glyde.
Walter and Marian together delve deeper into the mystery of the strange woman and engage in a battle of wits with Glyde's enigmatic Italian friend Count Fosco.

Discussion

The various strands of the plot combine to produce a thrilling story, leading this particular type of fiction to be described as 'sensation'.
''The Woman In White'' is also an early example of a particular type of Collins narrative in which several characters in turn take up the telling of the story. This creates a complex web in which readers are unsure which narrators can, and cannot, be trusted. Collins used this technique in his other novels, including ''The Moonstone''. This technique was copied by other novelists, including Bram Stoker, author of ''Dracula'' (1897), although by the end of the 19th century the technique was considered "old fashioned".
As was customary at that time, ''The Woman in White'' was first published as a magazine serial. The first episode appeared on 29 November 1859 in Charles Dickens's magazine ''All the Year Round'' in England, and Harper's Magazine in America. It caused an immediate sensation. Julian Symons (in his 1974 introduction to the Penguin edition) reports that "queues formed outside the offices to buy the next instalment. Bonnets, perfumes, waltzes and quadrilles were called by the book's title. Gladstone cancelled a theatre engagement to go on reading it. And Prince Albert sent a copy to Baron Stockmar."
A strong theme in the novel is that of marriage and its impact on women (in particular on Laura Fairlie). The plot revolves around men stealing women's identities.
Count Fosco is a brilliant man, equally at home in art and science, a devotee of the opera and a deep student of chemistry who makes use of his pharmaceutical skills to further his treacherous plots. He is flamboyant, charismatic, Falstaffian, courtly, refined, romantic, and even tender-hearted (at least in regard to the little mice and birds he keeps), a breathtaking, larger-than-life villain whose exceeding pleasure in his own malevolent genius is only complete when he is forced to reveal his villainy, in all its glory, in a written confession at the climax of the novel.

The role of women

Although Collins wrote a great deal on the social issues of his era, including the helplessness of women caught in the machinations of men, his writing often reinforces women’s places as second class citizens throughout the novel. Examples of this can be seen even in the opinions of Walter Hartwright and Marian Halcombe, two characters whose narratives may be considered trustworthy:
“no woman does think much of her own sex” (Marian)
”do all a woman can (which is very little, by-the-by) to hold my tongue” (Marian)
”Women can’t draw – their minds are too flighty, and their eyes are too inattentive” (Marian)
”Don’t shrink under it like a woman. Tear it out; trample it under foot like a man!” (Marian)
”My courage was only a woman’s courage” (Marian)
”common, too common, story of a man’s treachery and a woman’s frailty” (Hartwright)
When Hartwright first meets Marian, his first impressions show clearly the accepted role at the time of women in society and marriage: “Her expression – bright, frank and intelligent, appeared – while she was silent, to be altogether wanting in those feminine attractions of gentleness and pliability, without which the beauty of the handsomest woman alive is beauty incomplete”.
This ‘pliability’, in Walter’s opinion integral to female beauty, is also the downfall of the two main married women in the novel. Laura is married for her money and is used by her husband to clear him of any future concerns regarding his birthright. In Fosco’s case, marriage is used to tame the Countess, whose past life as a feminist is held in contempt and embarrassment by Marian. As at times Marian’s narrative is used to express Collins’ opinions, such as that of his scorn at the Victorian fashion for the “overrated” Elizabethan period, it may be deduced that radical feminism was not a movement of which Collins approved. However, the image of marriage Collins gives, portraying the dominance of men over their wives, is contradicted by Hartwright’s conviction that he must marry Laura before he can confront Fosco, his most dangerous enemy.
It is worth noting also, that one of the more independent female characters in the novel, Mrs Catherick, is portrayed as a vain, cold and hard woman, who has little motherly love for her daughter.
Statements throughout the novel such as, ”Women, as everybody knows, constantly act on impulses which they cannot explain even to themselves” (Marian) suggest an unwillingness by the author to understand the mentality of the women of his time. This, together with frequent references to the inferiority of women throughout the novel, ultimately impedes any social statement on this subject that Collins wishes to make. Perhaps due to a desire not to shock his readers by proposing any great change to the role of women in his society, Collins achieves only an expression of patronising compassion.

Adaptations

'Theater'

★ 2004 Andrew Lloyd Webber stage musical ''The Woman in White''
'Film and television'

★ 1997 BBC miniseries adapted by David Pirie starring Andrew Lincoln as Walter Hartright and Tara Fitzgerald as Marian Halcombe; also broadcast on PBS television in 1998

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★ 1982 Soviet film under the Russian title ''Zhenshchina v belom'', directed by Vadim Derbenyov and starring Aleksandr Abdulov as Walter Hartright and Lithuanian actress Gražina Baikštite as both Laura Fairlie and Anne Catherick

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★ 1982 BBC miniseries adapted by Ray Jenkins starring Daniel Gerroll as Walter Hartright and Diana Quick as Marian Halcombe

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★ 1948 Hollywood film adapted by Stephen Morehouse Avery starring Gig Young as Walter Hartright, Alexis Smith as Marian Halcombe, and Sydney Greenstreet as Count Fosco.

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★ 1929 British silent film adapted by Robert Cullen starring Haddon Mason as Walter Hartright and Louise Prussing as Marian Halcombe

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★ 1917 Hollywood silent film

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★ 1912 Hollywood silent film

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★ 1912 Hollywood silent film

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★ A Woman in White was featured in the Pilot episode of the CW's Supernatural
'Literature'

★ Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child published the novel ''Brimstone'' (2004), featuring a modern re-imagining of the villain Count Fosco.

External links

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