The Redundant Woman: The Solution

Now that we have reached the end of The Woman in White, I see Walter and Laura’s relationship in a completely different light.  At one point I found his sentimental asides about Laura to be tender and affectionate.  But upon taking another look, they seem more cringe-worthy than anything.  This passage in particular is a perfect example:

“Think of her as you thought of the first woman who quickened the pulses within you that the rest of her sex had no art to stir…Take her as a visionary nursling of your own fancy; and she will grow upon you, all the more clearly, as the living woman who dwells in mine” (52).

Laura Fairlie has been generalized.  Walter has molded her into this blank relatable figure in which everyone can use to reflect their own experiences.  As we have discussed as a class, Laura Fairlie, for her entire existence in novel, serves as an empty vessel in which characters see their own desires.  Walter does not change this.  In fact, he perpetuates it. She serves as a gateway to wealth and property for Sir Percival.  And for Walter she is no different.  The artist sees Laura as a blank canvas to paint and color however he pleases.

At one point, Walter describes “the water-colour drawing [he] made of Laura Fairlie” decorating his desk (51).  He describes her as a “light, youthful figure” whose “hair is so faint and a pale a brown—not flaxen, and yet almost as light; not golden, and yet almost as glossy—that is nearly melts here and there, into the shadow of the hat” (51).  The Laura that is being described to us isn’t Laura the person, but rather the Laura that Walter sees her as and wants her to be—Laura the decoration.  She is light, and faint.  Like her hair color, she is there but not quite.  She is even being described from a painting—Walter’s painting.  She is not real.

This excerpt is clearly written from after the events of the novel have occurred at an “after period” when Laura and Walter are married and living at Limmeridge, so why describe a painting of Laura when he could have looked at her actual person?  Because to Walter, she exists as an embodiment of the perfect wife—he doesn’t want to see her as a real person. Walter explicitly states in the main passage above that Laura “dwells” in his “fancy” (52).  The person he wants her to be exists in his imagination only.  The real Laura is repressed.

William Rathbone Greg argued adamantly for the marriage of all women.  His problem was with the “redundant woman”—the unmarried woman who could do what she wanted.  The redundant woman could earn money, forgo the “natural duties” of womanhood, and speak her mind.  Marriage was the solution.  Marriage tethered women to men, eradicated them of their own identity, and turned them into a reproductive machines.  Laura is Greg’s ideal married woman.  She has effectively been silenced and repressed by her marriage—reduced to a watercolor painting adorning her husband’s desk.

7 thoughts on “The Redundant Woman: The Solution”

  1. The quotes you chose to incorporate really help to solidify how Walter views Laura and how she is a solution to the problem of redundant women. The first quote is intriguing because it is extremely sexualized and is encouraging the male reader to fantasize about Laura. Combined with the second quote, Laura becomes a dream-like figure who nearly does not exist. Is Greg’s intention to make women disappear? Is that the only way they can be “useful” to society? How can a woman fulfill all of a man’s desires and needs if she is only a vision?

  2. This is a really interesting analysis of Walter’s view on Laura. I would, however, like to question the idea of Laura as an “ideal married woman.” While Laura is repressed in her marriage to Walter, and–in most cases–even submissive to Marian, we see a different side of her during her marriage to Sir Percival. At Blackwater Park, Laura asserts her own opinions and is never fully obedient to her husband, exemplified in the scene where she refuses to sign his contract without knowing what it entails. In fact, the only time in the entire novel in which Laura asserts herself is during her marriage to Sir Percival. In these scenes, she becomes something more than an ideal wife by showing the strength to stand up to Sir Percival, a strength which Walter doubted within himself.

  3. You make an interesting point here by saying that Walter idealizes Laura rather than loving her for who she really is. Taking this into account, I wonder then if their love is real or if it is just another example of conventional marriage, in which Walter seeks all the qualities a woman was required to have, with submission in first place. I also wonder why, if the whole Walter-Laura affair has to be seen under this light, Collins decides to place Marian as a third person in their marriage. Is it to say that she, too, will not be a redundant woman anymore, since she will taking care of Walter and Laura’s children, and thus, like her sister, she will be relegated to the domestic sphere?

  4. The “Laura” of the 1944 film is a successful advertising agent—although courted by multiple men, she is independent and financially capable of remaining so. Waldo Lydecker, a much older man, uses his newspaper column and prestige to libel Laura’s other suitors (thus limiting her love life), and to advance her career (thus making her feel beholden to him professionally). Thus, although she has the ambition of a “redundant woman” (and the financial freedom of a single working twenty-something woman with no children to support) Lydecker still strives to maintain patriarchal control over her through her career and romantic options.

  5. I find your observations about Laura being the “ideal” married woman and repressed in her marriage interesting. It reminded me of Walter’s brief comment about the change of names he has done in the novel, which seems to be another way that Laura (along with others) becomes repressed by Walter: he takes her name and changes it, which suggests further that he “takes” her identity and changes it to a different one. Thus we have to question – do we really get to see the “real” Laura at all?

  6. I am very intrigued by the argument you are making here: That Laura, by marrying, is made to be essentially a non-entity, and that Walter’s description of her is a reflection of this. Something I thought about while reading this, however, is the possibility that Carolyn Dever suggests in her notes, that Walter is not actually married to Laura, but instead to Anne. What Walter is doing by describing the water-color painting he made of Laura is avoiding the need to describe the woman to whom he is actually married, because he never knew Anne as a young woman. This also means that we don’t have as clear of an image in our minds of what Laura looks like. So when considering the case that Walter is making to prove his wife is Laura, if she is instead Anne, we do not have sufficient reason to believe that the woman he is describing initially is not the woman he has married.

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