Author: sparkleponyprincess

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.

Throughout the narratives of both Walter Hartright and Vincent Gilmore, Limmeredge House is shown to have a profoundly transformative effect on those who visit. Particularly in these cases, Wilkie Collins introduces the narrator as an upright man whose appearance at the house pertains to a specific undertaking. However, as Mr. Gilmore demonstrates during his account of his visit, the expectation-defying natures of the house’s inhabitants have a way of altering the perspectives of its visitors. “In the case of any other client,” Mr. Gilmore writes, “I should have acted on my instructions, however personally distasteful to me,” (Collins 154). From his introduction, Mr. Gilmore is presented as a man of business and refinement. When it comes to Miss Fairlie, on the contrary, “[he cannot] do with this business-like indifference,” (154). Interestingly, the word “cannot” is chosen rather than one suggesting any level of agency. In a rare moment where Mr. Gilmore is denying that which is asked of him, the writing implies an unusual lack of personal involvement or choice. Collins immediately shifts into an uncharacteristically-emotional recollection of Mr. Gilmore’s longtime relationship with the fairlies. Though Mr. Gilmore has mentioned, in passing, his long relationship with the family, it has never been in such depth or length. Mr. Gilmore’s reverie ultimately leads him to the conclusion that “writing a second time to Mr. Fairlie was not to be thought of” (154). For the time, Mr. Gilmore’s choice to go behind the eyes of his client’s male guardian is very much subversive, and hallmarks an important change in his thinking that culminates in his argument with Mr. Fairlie.