The character of Walter Hartright presented within the novel is one who forces the reader to believe that he is a man exceptionally different from Sir. Percival and Count Fosco. The reader is brought to believe that Walter is different from the other men due to the fact that he is an advocate for the women within the novel, rather than an oppressor. This image of Walter as an advocate for woman and possibly even a feminist is explored throughout the novel because of his actions. Walter is the only male character who actively assists the women in their quest for justice, trying to attain Laura’s true identity and ruin Sir Percival and Count Fosco for their wrong doings. When Walter runs into Anne Catherick on the road to London he points her in the right direction, “We met very late, and I helped you to find the way to London…..Take time to recover yourself-take time to feel quite certain that I am a friend. (pg95-96)” The reader, as well as the women within the novel are lead to believe that Walter is a friend, a trusted male individual who sets forth the best intentions for the women.
However, upon reading Perkins and Donaghy’s, “A Man’s Resolution: Narrative Strategies In Wiklie Collins’ The Woman in White” one can determine that Walter is no different from Fosco and Percival as Perkins states, “Walter proceeds to make Laura even more haze and less individualized…” Alike Fosco and Percival, Walter has a hidden agenda and casts a veiled patriarchal oppression towards the women within the novel. Walter does not help the woman or advocate for them solely because he believes they deserve justice, but because he wants to be the hero for these women, he wants to hold power over them just as much as the other men within the novel, but he approaches it in a different way. Walter’s oppression towards the women is initially overlooked due to his actions and words that projects him as a friend and advocate for the women. Upon revisiting the text through the lens of Perkins and Donaghy, Walter’s sensationalized reaction towards Anne Catherick is a moment that highlights him no different from the typical Victorian male. Despite Walter being a ‘friend’ towards Ann and leading her in the right direction towards London he is shocked at her discovery. When he first sees her he is dumbstruck because of the sight of a woman alone in the middle of the night is something unnatural for a woman within this time. Therefore Walter is perpetuating female oppression because he is so bewildered at the sight of lone Anne Catherick.
I don’t think Walter perpetuates female oppression as Count Fosco and Sir Percival do. I believe, instead, that he tries to balance his function as both a human being involved with the events and a narrator who set himself as a guarantor of truth. As he says at the very beginning, “the story here presented will be told by more than one pen, as the story of an offence against the laws is told in Court by more than one witness[…] to present the truth in the most direct and intelligible aspect[..]”(9) To fulfill this duty, he has to select what to report, and this may be the reason why in the second part of the novel Laura is silenced and we follow the story mainly through Walter’s report, as to say that HE is able to detach himself from the events thus offering a reliable narration.
What specific parts do we see Walter’s true nature? What about Marian and Laura?