Class Blog

Upon meeting Mrs. Catherick, Mr. Hartright narrates her physical appearance, describing her as having dark eyes that “look straight forward, with a hard, defiant, implacable stare. She had full square cheeks; a long, firm chin; and thick, sensual, colourless lips. Her figure was stout and sturdy, and her manner aggressively self-possessed” (Collins 484). As Mrs. Catherick guarding her position and reputation she has carefully constructed within her community against a foreigner investigating the identity she wants to remain stable, her personality exudes hostility.

The attention towards her “sensual” lips assume a more stereotypical female trait as compared to Marian’s “masculine form and masculine look” (Collins 35). Marian and Mrs. Catherick remain a complex duo as they are both female characters who are assertive and protective of their identities. Though as Marian defends her identity in relation to the safety of her sister’s emotional and legal well-being, Mrs. Catherick is “self-possessed” in safeguarding her own persona and its perception to others. While her “manner” is “aggressive” and inwardly obsessed with maintaining the perfect “high” standing amongst other assumed low standing community members, her physical appearance is “stout and sturdy” (Collins 487). The combination of those words reveals the linkage between Mrs. Catherick’s fatness and her immovable and “defiant” nature. Her logic connects the benefits of remaining stagnant in her community positioning and physical home to stability and sturdiness. And yet, that sturdiness is coupled with her fatness—a quality describing the other defiant, male character, Count Fosco.

Fatness in the nineteenth century was often female coded as it signified both the ability to maternally “nurture” with appeasing sexual appetites (Huff 408). Mrs. Catherick represents a mixture of sensualness and fatness. While at this time fatness was stigmatized and led to hostile responses from the public despite being in a consumer culture urging people to spend money, Mrs. Catherick seems to disregard the negativity of her body by being hostile towards others. Perhaps, Collins suggests that her “aggressively self-possessed” manner is so full of excess that the fatness trickles out as hostility towards others instead of others responding with hostility towards her stoutness. She, in turn, reverses the ills of her fatness as she uses her sturdiness and size to her advantage as both a feminine coded “sensual” seductor and a “stout and sturdy” aggressive self-protector.

While her bourgeois body is considered “improper” and therefore an inefficient “machine,” she has spent her whole life with her unforgiving “stare” and “defiant” personality to prove herself as an effective turning machine, successfully defying what fatness should mean for her Victorian existence and challenging it (Huff 408). Though, alternatively, Collins presents Mrs. Catherick as a “stout” woman effectively hiding behind a secret, lacking the agency she supposedly has. Perhaps, her fatness instead symbolically weighs her total freedom down as achieving that freedom in stability and remaining known and liked in the community is her sole focus. Hartright’s investigation into this secret damages the body and therefore reputation management she has built. Her “bourgeois body management,” in this instance, falls short of securing the individual security she seeks as her physical stoutness masks the control she actually has (Huff 409).

While certain rights and freedoms were granted to women throughout the nineteenth century, they still faced many oppressions, both legally and socially. For example, the law made it exceedingly difficult for women to get divorced from their husbands (“The Victorian Age” 992). Additionally, a woman’s role in life was to ensure the happiness of her husband. As stated in The Victorian Age section of The Norton Anthology of English Literature, “Protected and enshrined within the home, her [a woman’s] role was to create a place of peace where man could take refuge from the difficulties of modern life (992). Essentially, as expected by society, a woman’s – particularly a middle-class woman’s – purpose in life was to attend to the needs and desires of men.

The burdens of these expectations on women are explicitly depicted in Wilkie Collins’, The Woman in White. While these depictions are scattered throughout the entire novel, there is one paragraph that explicitly describes the struggles that these expectations have caused. Upset about her sister’s marriage to Sir Percival Glyde, Marian complains about a woman’s duty to men, stating that “they [men] take us body and soul to themselves, and fasten our helpless lives to theirs as they chain up a dog to his kennel. And what does the best of them give us in return” (Collins 181)? Marian is not only expressing her frustration at Laura’s marriage to a man she does not want to marry but also expressing her frustration with the role of women in general. She hates that women have to give so much while they get nothing in return. It is interesting for Marian to be showing frustration about this, particularly because her character always seems to agree with belittling stereotypes about women. Perhaps it was Laura’s marriage to Sir Percival that opened her eyes to the burdens of a woman’s role in society. It is also interesting that Wilkie Collins recognized and spoke so openly about this topic. Overall, The Woman in White provides insight into what the life and struggles of a woman may have been like in the Victorian era, a time when women were expected to put men before themselves.

The Woman in White, as a rule, generally hinges upon the inaction of its characters as a device for furthering the catastrophe permeating its pages. This, of course, can refer to any number of the novel’s characters; but, more often than not, Laura Fairlie can be found at the center of Wilkie Collins’ intertwined conflicts. Since the very beginning of Walter Hartright’s residence at Limmeredge House, he and Marian Halcombe have maintained a level of secrecy concerning anything remotely “upsetting.” When it comes to Laura, the two of them grow protective, to the point where they fret over even slightly disturbing her mental state. This exercise in omission only intensifies with the reveal of her engagement to Sir Percival Glyde, and more when the marriage itself takes place. Throughout the entire narrative, those both close and far from Laura have engaged in a cycle of white lies. For our narrators (Marian and Walter), their desire to protect Laura supposedly justifies such behaviors. Laura herself seems initially content enough to let Marian and Walter pursue their own suspicions while she is in the throes of her engagement.

All those in The Woman in White, however, are not our narrators, and it is at a crucial moment that Sir Percival Glyde forces the reader to reevaluate the choices they have become accustomed to for the entirety of the novel. While berating Eliza Michelson after she announces her resignation due to his questionable actions, he asserts that the “deception” Laura has most recently been subjected to is “innocent” and “essential to her health,” answering her own needs in a way she could not consciously (Collins 392). Such language has been used for the past four hundred pages, justifying the keeping of critical information from Laura as something that is for her own good. Marian and Walter are sympathetic characters, and thus the audience will tend to align themselves morally with their protagonists. Sir Percival thus takes the comfortability the audience has established and uses the rhetoric of care to deal one final blow against his wife.

Such language of control has also appeared, perhaps obviously, in the portrayal of Anne Catherick and her consignment to an asylum. I believe Collins is drawing a direct parallel between Sir Percival’s deception of Laura and the lies surrounding Anne’s commitment to the asylum to demonstrate the negative influences the self-interests of others have on these two young women’s lives. In doing such, the reader is made to question the choices made earlier in the novel by Marian and Walter, prompting a reevaluation of a large part of the narrative thus far. Sir Percival and Mrs. Catherick have shown the reader that an “innocent deception” can result in far larger consequences than originally planned.

“What does informal empire mean?” Jessie Reeder’s essay illuminating the paradox inherent in informal empire brings to his reader’s attention that the agents of empire, while invading lands they have no ownership over in quest for wealth, often do so without the awareness that they are “‘missionaries of capitalism’ and the ‘capitalist vanguard’” (Reeder, 432). Indeed, another definition for “informal empire,” he informs us, is “financial imperialism” (431). Freed from the hierarchies demanded by the supervision of centralized power, “most individuals simply followed their own individual, rather than any large systemic, motivations” (432). The key word here is most.

In The Women in White, both Count Fosco and Sir Percival Glyde operate as agents of informal empire, aiming to gain financial control over Laura Glyde née Fairlie. They do so outside of structured, hierarchal power dynamics: in this setting, that is the Glyde’s marriage and Count Fosco’s dominance over the takeover. Additionally, Count Fosco is himself a foreigner, and is entering not only onto English territory but specifically Laura and Percival’s territory, in order to enact “a system of coercive power” (432). Both Percival and the Count are aware of their actions and their financial desire, and both are enacting nefarious works to obtain their desires; however, where Percival strives to do so within the bounds of his marriage with Laura – when he is trying to convince her to sign the mysterious document: “I have told her this is merely a formal document – and what more can she want? You may say what you please; but it is no part of a woman’s duty to set her husband at defiance.” (Collins, 246) – Count Fosco exerts control over Percival himself, the sending and receiving of mail, the animals and people surrounding him, and the health of the people around him. Some scholars, Reeder informs us, reject the term “informal empire,” and instead suggest “that ‘sphere of influence’ or ‘dependency’ better fits the bill” (Reeder, 433). Both Fosco and Percival foster exert their influence to encourage dependency in others, often by using their status, in their effort to pursue their individual desires for first financial freedom, and then financial control. Walter and Mariane, upon their reunion, understand that “[they] had no mercy to expect from Count Fosco and Sir Percival Glyde. The success of the conspiracy had brought with it a clear gain to those two men of thirty thousand pounds – twenty thousand to one: ten thousand to the other” (Collins, 431).

In direct opposition to Percival and Count Fosco, Walter Hartright embodies the unaware vessel for informal imperialism within the novel. Whereas Fosco and Percival are actively participating in their desire for financial domination, Hartright leaves England to escape from his ill-begotten love for the then-Laura Fairlie. To do so, he joins an expedition to Central America, to “make excavations among the ruined cities” (178). While it is unclear exactly what is happening during his time away, it can be assumed that the excavations he is joining are in the interest of financial gain – if not for the individual, then for the empire. However, it is clear that upon his return to England, he has not netted financial gain from the expedition. Although he returns “a changed man,” the money he contributes to his and Mariane’s fund is only “the purchase-money obtained from the sale by the sale of [his] drawing master’s practice before [he] left England” (406; 432). Later, when Walter meets with Mr. Kyrle, he refuses to discuss Laura’s affairs with him and tells him “There shall be no money-motive…no idea of personal advantage, in the service I mean to render to Lady Glyde” (445). Although Walter can’t count himself among the individuals intentionally participating in the financial imperialism happening within the novel, and indeed flat-out denies wanting to, he is still complicit in it through his vague expedition to Central America – he faces death by “disease,” “Indians,” and “drowning” – and, I theorize, his involvement with Mariane and Laura. Although we have yet to read about it in the novel, I wonder the ways in which Walter Hartright will experience the benefit of his informal imperialism, just by virtue of being among the men intruding into Mariane and Laura’s lives.

In William Rathbone Greg’s pamphlet on “the redundant woman,” he makes claims about acceptable celibacy, saying that this choice should not be made as “a mere escape from the lottery of marriage” (Greg 159).  Two words stand out: “mere escape.” “Escape” denotes his understanding that the marriage market is a cyclical institution, one which perpetuates itself, while “mere” connotes trivializing the woman’s desire next to the power of the institution.  Greg fails to account for women who might have to “escape” from the institution of marriage, out of necessity.  This is a side of marriage available to readers in The Woman in White.  As The Norton Anthology notes, a married woman’s legal protection was extremely limited, with restrictions on property, child custody, and conditions of divorce (“Victorian” 991).   

One condition under which middle- and upper-class woman could claim a divorce was by proving a husband’s cruelty (“Victorian” 990).  In The Woman in White, Marian is clearly aware of this clause and acts practically when Laura reveals evidence of domestic abuse: 

“She showed me the marks. I was past grieving over them, past crying over them, past shuddering over them. They say we are either better than men, or worse. If the temptation that has fallen in some women’s way, and made them worse, had fallen in mine at that moment—Thank God! my face betrayed nothing that his wife could read. The gentle, innocent, affectionate creature thought I was frightened for her and sorry for her, and thought no more.” (Collins 305). 

Marian is detachedly analytical in this passage, investigating “the marks” without reference to whom they are inflicted on, and then pushing her own feelings back in three parallel clauses (“I was past”) as if to convince the reader and herself that she has no emotion.  In the next sentence, she also tries to distance herself from womanhood, which she associates with emotion (“grieve,” “cry,” or “shudder”) and the emotion with fault (“temptation,” “worse”).  Her value as a woman is firmly grounded in a dialogue with men, where a valued woman can“hide” her emotion.  Therefore, in an act of self-fashioning, she aligns herself with masculinity (or a more masculinely coded version of acceptable femininity) but is unsure of her success in the first clause of the sentence.  However, in bursting forth “Thank God!-My face betrayed nothing,” she considers her reserve a success. Laura, meanwhile, is associated solely with femininely coded values (“gentle, innocent, affectionate” “thought no more”).  There is still the implication that a woman cannot advocate well enough for herself, and she needs a masculine presence to help her voice those claims – in order to get help, femininity must be put aside. A woman has to “th[ink],” to remember, a position which is presented as masculine. 

In light of this quotation, it is revealing to return to Greg, who writes that “The residue…who remain unmarried constitute the problem to be solved, the evil and anomaly to be cured” (Greg 159).  It seems that Greg’s conclusions need to be flipped as they apply to The Woman in White: Marian, one of his so-called redundant women, is the one who cures, both physically and in proposing legal intervention, and the injury that needs to be cured results from his highly exalted marriage.  Greg’s “lottery,” then, is just as perilous for the woman as it is desirable for him.  Given that the novel is interested in men with hidden personalities putting their best foot forward for marriage while enacting harm behind closed doors, perhaps in the introduction when Hartright claims that the story is about “what a Woman’s patience can endure,” he is introducing a central theme.  Perhaps this line raises not a question of “what” but a question of “how much”: the novel implicitly criticizes marital laws, asking how much a woman must endure before legal sympathy can be drawn on, if at all (Collins 5). 

 

Works Cited: 

Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White. Edited by John Sutherland, Oxford, Oxford University Press, [1860] 2008. 

Greg, William Rathbone. “The Redundant Woman.” pp. 157-163. 

“The Victorian Age 1830-1901.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 8th Edition Volume E, Edited by Carol T. Christ and Catherine Robson, 2006. 

When we first meet Anne Catherick, at this time still only known as “the woman in white,” Hartright dedicates a paragraph to describing her.  It is a longer paragraph, focused on her physical appearance.  Hartright describes her features and the clothes she is wearing, but pays special attention to pointing out her modesty.  He says, “there was nothing wild, nothing immodest in her manner” (Collins 26).  The sentiment of Catherick’s modesty, while not explicitly mentioned, is carried throughout the rest of Hartright’s description.  He uses words and phrases like “meagre,” “youthful,” “quiet and self-controlled,” and “free” (26).  Again, these words are not in direct reference to the woman’s sexuality (or lack thereof), but they reaffirm Catherick’s modesty to the reader.  The paragraph ends with Hartright directly assuring the reader, yet again, that the woman’s intentions are honest, “even at that suspiciously late hour and in that suspiciously lonely place” (26).  

Why repeatedly mention her modesty?  Why does Hartright include this detail so painstakingly in his narrative?

An obvious answer might be that this feature stood out in Hartrights memory as he recounted the story, and he deemed it essential for the reader to know.  But I ask again, why?

The opposite of sexuality is the absence of it, not modesty.  The repeated mentions of Catherick’s modesty call the reader to think of sexuality in the novel.  If Willkie Collins did not intend for the reader to have thoughts of sexuality in regards to the woman and how Hartright views her, he would not have brought it up.

I do not think that the reader is meant to view Catherick as a sexual figure or to believe that Hartright sees her sexually.  But I do think we are meant to pay attention to what this could mean going forward.  Hartright falls desperately in love with a woman who looks eerily similar to Catherick.  At the same time, he is being haunted by thoughts of Catherick and her possible connections to his life.  I’d be interested to see what comes of Hartright’s sexual mentions as the story continues, and what other repetitions might reveal.

“My task is done. My personal share in the events of the family story extends no farther than the point which I have just reached. Other pens than mine will describe the strange circumstances which are now shortly to follow. Seriously and sorrowfully I close this brief record. Seriously and sorrowfully I repeat here the parting words that I spoke at Limmeridge House:—No daughter of mine should have been married to any man alive under such a settlement as I was compelled to make for Laura Fairlie.”

What drew me to this specific section of the reading is his tone after signaling the conclusion of his role in the specific legal matter that he has been asked to complete. “My task is done” shows that he has provided his side of the story, and acknowledges that others are now to take over the storytelling. His awareness of the story’s absurdity is incredibly interesting, especially in the line, “Other pens than mine will describe the strange circumstances” which is a clever way of distancing himself from the future events and shifting the focus to other characters. The repeated emotional language (shoutout to Freud here) of “Seriously and sorrowfully” emphasizing his emotional state implies regret or guilt, particularly in regard to the marriage settlement he was forced to make for Laura. The repetition of these words underscores his emotional disquiet, and foreshadows the troubled nature of Laura’s marriage. 

Mr. Gilmore represents the legal and financial realities of Victorian society, and his reflection on the marriage settlement is crucial in understanding the inequities of that system. The line, “No daughter of mine should have been married to any man alive under such a settlement,” is a key indication that he recognizes the settlement as deeply flawed and unfair. The marriage settlement is a key plot device in the novel, symbolizing the financial control placed over women, particularly in terms of property and inheritance. Mr. Gilmore, while not entirely a villain, is part of the system that enforces these structures. He may feel sorry for Laura, but his legal role means he cannot act on that sorrow to make a tangible difference in her circumstances. 

This is the most important part to understand in the context of this section of the novel, as Mr. Gilmore’s sorrow also highlights the theme of powerlessness, particularly for women in Victorian society. While he expresses regret, he ultimately cannot change the situation, and his inability to act is a key reflection of the way that social and legal systems constrained individuals like Laura. She is effectively powerless within the structures that Mr. Gilmore, as a lawyer, enforces. His professional detachment is paired with his personal acknowledgment of the injustice done to her, reflecting a broader theme in the novel about the limitations of legal and societal systems.

Bringing this idea back to the very start of the novel itself, “But the Law is still, in certain inevitable cases, the pre-engaged servant of the long purse.” This proves this passage reveals Mr. Gilmore’s internal conflict and highlights his unease with the constraints placed on Laura. It also reinforces the novel’s critique of a legal system that, while seemingly neutral, often perpetuates gendered inequalities. 

Thank you, I’ll be crossing a street near you!

Jay Walker

In the opening pages of Collin’s The Woman in White, Mr. Walter Hartwright comes face to face with the titular character, a strange woman wandering the streets of London in the middle of the night. Based on Victorian-era social strictures applied to women at the time, it was considered improper for a young woman to be out late at night unaccompanied. Men and women were often relegated to “separate spheres”, with the Victorian woman “protected and enshrined within the home, her role to create a place of peace where man could take refuge from the difficulties of modern life” (Norton Anthology 992).
Collins demonstrates the strict nature of English society at the time of his novel by highlighting Hartwright’s utter shock at the woman’s appearance. Commenting on the encounter, he writes “I was far too startled by the suddenness with which this extraordinary apparition stood before me, in the dead of night and in that lonely place…” (24). This sentence clearly articulates how uncomfortable the woman in white’s presence has made him, not only because of her mystique but also by virtue of the situation. Because Hartwright considers himself to be a “gentleman” by Victorian social standards, he goes to great lengths to make clear that nothing untoward occurred between the two when they were alone so late at night. Even the woman herself is clearly anxious to be percieved improperly, saying “You don’t suspect me of doing anything wrong, do you?” and “Why do you suspect me of doing wrong?” (25) with little prompting from Hartwright himself.

Although he finds the interaction out of the ordinary, Hartwright quickly defends her honor, saying “the grossest of mankind could not have misconstrued her motive in speaking, even at that suspiciously late hour and in that suspiciously lonely place” (24). Even under strange and dream-like circumstances, Hartwright’s rhetoric stays strictly within the confines of proper English social standards. In writing his narrator this way, Collins is demonstrating that much of the novel’s most interesting revelations are to be found in the subtext.

“…she was fond of white in her lifetime; and here is white stone about her grave- and I am making it whiter for her sake. She often wore white herself and always dressed her daughter in white. Is Miss Fairlie well and happy? Does she wear white now, as she used to when she was a girl?” (Collins 102). 

In this conversation between Anne and Walter at the graveyard, the repetition of white works in conjunction with the flow of the passage emphasizes the emotional weight of the basis for Anne’s focus on warning Laura of the betrothal’s reality. First, repetition of “white” along with the color being connected to markers of Mrs. Fairlie’s life and death (the color of her grave) shows the emotional significance that color had for her. It was a constant throughout much of her life to the end of it, showing the depth of her fondness for it. By dressing both Anne and Laura in the color, she marks her deep affection for the girls. It connects something she loves to the people she loves. This establishes why Anne cares so much about warning Laura of the true nature of her betrothed. Mrs. Fairlie’s monumental impact on Anne’s life leads her to protecting her daughter as repayment for the love and understanding that she showed Anne. Furthermore, the use of assertive sentences adds to this sense of strong will and attachment to her ambition as the flow of them gives the feeling of leaving no space for pushing against her in this. 

The flow of sentences and repetition of white in the passage is broken by Anne asking if Laura is “well and happy” (Collins 102). The phrasing of the question gives a sense of child-like hope and care through the use of simplistic adjectives and phrasing. The question is short and only asks about Laura’s sense of “happiness” which is often a concern of and similar to questions that children ask. Of course, adults can have similar inquiries but their phrasing of them is complicated by the focus on status and the constant awareness of the harsh nature of reality that comes with adulthood. 

Anne also further emphasizes the connection between happiness and white in her mind with the second question. After asking about Laura’s wellbeing, she asks if she continues wearing white in the present, a color that represents the innocence and joy of childhood. The back-to-back questions along with the continued mention of white brings a sense of slight frantic energy from Anne as it shows the significance of white as the emotional basis for her actions and questions. 

The flow of the passage’s phrasing and structure along with the recurrence of white’s significance provides greater understanding of the history and values of that direct Anne and her great focus on preventing Laura’s marriage. With this, the emotional basis and dramatic tone of the novel is heightened.

“The lady’s complexion was almost swarthy, and the dark down on her upper lip was almost a moustache. She had a large, firm, masculine mouth and jaw; prominent, piercing, resolute brown eyes; and thick, coal-black hair, growing unusually low down on her forehead. 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.” (Wilkie Collins Project Gutenberg)

The Victorians love phrenology almost as much as they love tea and biscuits. The idea that the way a person looks determines who they are is an insidious idea that is inherently racist because it holds traditionally white features in higher esteem and demeans and dehumanizes everyone else. This pseudoscience can be seen here as Walter Hartright demeans the woman’s features for not being European and Aryan enough. Large features as well as coarse black hair are seen as signs of ugliness. Additionally, this passage shows just how invested Walter is in the traditional ideas of masculinity. The intelligent features, which again is simply phrenology and there is no such thing as looking intelligent that isn’t built off of societal stereotypes that are built around the idea that rich white men are smart and capable which leads us to the ideas of social Darwinism which while I don’t believe has been put into explicit terms yet the idea of “the rich are just better” has been around since forever, are unbecoming to a woman because a woman’s role, in the mind of this fucking jackass, is to be silent and submissive which we see as he says, “while she was silent, to be altogether wanting in those feminine attractions of gentleness and pliability,” a woman’s role is to be silent, pretty, and most importantly, to fit into the cishet white patriarchy.

So long and thanks for all of the fish,

Carmine