In The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, the binaries that are used in society- male/female, virtuous/villainous, domestic/foreign- are repeatedly broken, confused and overlapped. One passage that captures this fun house mirror effect is in the discussion between Percival and the Count about Lady Glyde’s death. To Percival’s exclamation “you make my flesh creep!” (327) the Count replies “Your flesh? Does flesh mean conscience in English?” (327). This seems to be intended to tease Percival about his ‘conscience’ but when looked at with special attention to the binaries presented in the book the passage is more about how virtue and honor are thought of in Victorian England. The first assumption about flesh and conscience brings the readers mind straight to virginity. A virtuous woman is a virgin. In other words your conscience is clean if your flesh is clean. Is the Count then criticizing the English obsession with virginity? In addition to this he adds the addendum “in English” (327), not England. He seems not to be making a point about English culture but the English language. What ideas are conflated with virtue? What does virtue mean about a person? With this in mind I believe this passage is meant to make the reader question the language of conscience and virtue whenever it is brought up in the book.
However another meaning for this passage is a commentary on how throughout the story the truth is told on people’s faces. Often times a character just ‘knows’ when looking at someone’s face, especially with the character of Anne Catherick. Her every emotion and thought is clearly written across her face in a similar sense to Laura Fairlie (this seems to change when she is Lady Glyde, but that is a discussion for another time). Both of these women are praised for their feminine characteristics which seem always to include their lack of guile. Here flesh and conscience are clearly linked in ways that they are not with the male characters. Fosco and Percival both trick people by outward impressions of virtue and honor but are in actuality contemplating murder. It is interesting to me then that the ability for trickery seems linked with masculinity when women are often labeled as the more mischievous and treacherous of the sexes.
I like how you used the phrase “fun house mirror” to describe what is happening in this novel reflecting on the period and the social constraints. It is incredible how this very small sentence holds so much meaning. I would not have noticed the duality of this statement if you had not pointed it out but it truly does seem to exemplify the constant duality we see throughout this text. Not only does this sentence address the English customs or way of life but it comments on its own language. This intertextuality is so interesting and Collins does this again when he includes that passage of Count Fosco after reading Marian’s passage. With both of these elements, I think that Collins is trying to make the reader truly think about the narrator and writing itself as well as successfully commenting on the English tradition of separating the abilities of men and women.
Your post intrigued me because of the connection you make between trickery and masculinity, especially in regards to Count Fosco. The positive descriptions of the Count made by Mr. Gilmore and Eliza Michelson reveal how deceiving he can be when he needs to win the favor of specific characters. Eliza even made a note at the end of her account that “no blame whatever, in connexion with the events which I have now related, attaches to Count Fosco” (398). If trickery is so intricately tied to masculinity in this novel, then what is the purpose of Fosco simultaneously being a feminine character?
I completely agree with your interpretation of that line. I hadn’t stopped to think about the connection between morality and flesh before. I also think you’re on to something with the physical manifestation of conscience. Not only does the truth show on people’s faces, but the corporeality of conscience reinforces the motif of “sensations” that’s woven throughout the book. In the novel, the body is able to intuit things through touch before the mind, such as Walter’s “sensations” when Anne touches him, and Marian’s “sensations” upon first meeting Count Fosco.