Category: Spring 2015

In his 1862 essay “Why are Women Redundant?” William Rathbone Greg laments the excess population of single, unmarried women in Great Britain. Greg argues that this excess leads to moral and social evils such as women finding employment outside of the home and women having sexual relations with other women. To remedy this problem, Greg offers a plan for female emigration in order to restore the balance between the sexes.

While Greg’s proposition may appear ridiculous to twenty-first-century readers, reading Greg’s essay alongside Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White illuminates Collins’s deep engagement with this issue of the redundant woman in his novel, particularly through the characters of Anne Catherick and Marian Halcombe.

In her almost identical physical appearance to Laura Fairlie, Anne Catherick is redundant because she is essentially the duplicate of another woman. The novel later reveals that Laura and Anne are half sisters by the same father. Because Laura is legitimate and married, she survives; by contrast, Anne—illegitimate and unmarried—dies. Anne’s death solves the problem of this redundancy, but not before their likeness enables Sir Percival and Count Fosco to create an elaborate scheme to steal Laura’s identity and fortune. In light of Greg’s essay, Collins appears to be commenting on the danger of redundant women.

By the end of the novel, Marian emerges as the true redundant woman. After Walter and Laura marry, they worry about “the consideration of Marian’s future” (621) as a single, unmarried woman. Marian resolves to live with Walter and Laura in what is essentially a marriage of three. Marian’s strange words to Walter deserve closer examination:

“Wait a little till there are children’s voices at your fireside. I will teach them to speak for me, in their language; and the first lesson they say to their father and mother will be – We can’t spare our aunt!”

Marian clearly indicates reproduction as a byproduct of marriage, echoing Greg’s concern over “the abnormal extent of female celibacy” (162). While Marian will be celibate as an unmarried woman, she describes assuming the domestic role of the mother-as-teacher, thereby splitting female obligations between herself and her half sister.

The word “spare” here is particularly complex. On one level, the word functions ironically because “spare” is synonymous with “redundant” or “extra.” The meaning of the sentence, however, lies in tension with this denotation; taking the definition of “spare” as “to part with” (OED), “We can’t spare our aunt!” means that the children believe Marian to be an absolutely essential part of their household. “Spare” may also carry a third, more nefarious meaning that contradicts the second: “to abstain from destroying, removing” (OED). In this interpretation of “can’t spare,” the children admit to the necessity of removing their aunt. According to Greg, this removal is necessary in order to eliminate the redundant woman. Collins clearly packs a lot of ambiguity into this line, which Greg’s essay helps illuminate.

Walter Hartright is the main narrator of Wilkie Collin’s The Woman in White however he is not trustworthy. From the start the reader is told by Walter that he has put together these narrations to prove his beloved Laura’s identity as though the reader is judge and jury in the court of her life. Walter seems to pride himself on the virtue of his motives, on his ability to stay above the other men in the story who are driven by greed or malice. Whereas Percival wants Laura for her money, her property, Walter is convinced that his love for Laura is honest and pure. However the language that Walter uses about Laura contradicts that, as Perkins and Donaghy point out in their piece A Man’s Resolution: Narrative Strategies in Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White “her ability to fit into the role of a charming and innocent young girl is more important than the individuality he is supposedly reclaiming” (393). Walter does not love Laura, he objectifies her.

After hearing the Counts conditions Walter decides “it was hard, when I had fastened my hold on him, at last, to loosen it again of my own accord- but I forced myself to make the sacrifice. In plainer words, I determined to be guided by the one higher motive of which I was certain, the motive of serving the cause of Laura, and the cause of Truth” (591). The repetition of “I” with active verbs like “I had fastened”, “I forced”, “I determined”, and “I was certain” shows how Walter is ultimately concerned not with Laura’s identity, but his own action. This is reinforced by repeating “my” and “myself”. All these sentences revolve around Walter and what he owns. The only mention of Laura- the supposed benefactor in all of this- is in her comparison to “Truth” (591). This does not give her agency or a voice however, it pushes her farther away from any real characterization. She is an entity, like Truth, or God, or “My Wife” (589). These words condense large ideas with many different meanings behind them and therefore fall flat as actual descriptions of who Laura really is. Walter doesn’t see Laura as a human, but an idea. He is fighting not because the law is unfair and was used to strip Laura of her identity or because he loves Laura, but as Perkins and Donaghy say, “because the values Walter upholds exist to protect property” (400). The story even ends with Walter Hartright and his property. In fact, he never succeeds in giving Laura her identity. To the end Walters hand rules the narration and seems to erase Laura from the pages. Perhaps Wilkie Collins is suggesting that to love in the Victorian sense, through courtship and marriage, is to erase a woman’s identity to privilege their husbands actions.

The narrative structure of The Woman in White presents the reader with a number of potential interpretations of Walter Hartright’s intentions—from attempting to reestablish Laura’s identity to trying to avenge his rightful property. In the first chapter of the novel, Walter deceives the reader by stating that “the story [is] here presented…by more than one witness…to present the truth always in its most direct and most intelligible aspect” (Collins 5). One key piece of information that Walter leaves out until later in the novel is that he will be the one collecting all of these narratives and, presumably, editing them to fit his purpose. According to Pamela Perkins and Mary Donaghy, Walter, through his role as editor and chief narrator, “is in fact manipulating the narrative for his own ends” (392). Therefore, Walter is not presenting the truth and clearly has ulterior motives.

Walter’s motives can be understood through his representation of the “facts” that he portrays in the novel. Throughout his narrative, he presents information as though they had just occurred and as though he has the same amount of information as the reader. However, in the Third Epoch, Walter reveals that he “[has] paused and rested for a while on [his] forward course” and admits that he is “looking forward to the happier time which [his] narrative has not yet reached” (490). Due to his previous attempt at disguising his motives, Perkins and Donaghy argue that Walter’s “voice is far from reliable despite its pretense of objectivity” (396). This act of concealing his fundamental role in the text creates the initial doubt about his intentions in collecting all of this information that supposedly revolves around “the woman in white.”

If Laura is reestablished in society and Count Fosco and Sir Percival Glyde have been avenged by the time Walter collected this narrative, then his motives must lie in something else. Perkins and Donaghy claim that Walter only presents his retribution against Sir Percival to “persuade his readers that his investigative skills are unequaled” (398). Perkins and Donaghy reference Walter’s continual need to be justified in his actions by readers and other characters. His self-conscious nature reveals that Walter’s actual intention in narrating this story is a self-justification of why he deserves his new position in society, and it is an act of pride rather than of selfless love.

Walter fails in presenting himself as the hero, because, according to Perkins and Donaghy, his “shortcomings” prove that Marian is the “strong and capable figure” in the novel (398). Count Fosco even admits that his “fatal admiration for Marian restrained” him from preventing his demise” (628). Marian controls the entire plot of The Woman in White even though Walter tries to claim all the responsibility. Therefore, Wilkie Collins goes against Victorian gender constructions in The Woman in White through the flawed narrator and editorial figure of Walter and his representation of Marian as the strongest and most trustworthy character in his novel.

As we have recently discussed in class, part of the fascination with The Woman in White is based in the triangular marriage between Laura, Marian, and Walter. Deven, in her short essay on how Collins plays with marriage plots in most of his work, discusses that the “marital love among three figures, rather than the conventional two” is a key plot used by Collins (page 113). The entirety of The Woman in White revolves around these marital irregularities, as Deven discusses, and through that lens it is possible to see how this book really was a “sensation” novel in the 1860s; it is sensational in that these marriages and situations were unlike the common theme. These plots are tremendously unrealistic, from our viewpoint in 2015, though it is possible that in 1860, maybe there were often plots to change status or marriages of equal minds in conflict with a marriage of property. I think the most important thing in reading  The Woman in White is to be able to interpret the story from our perspective in 2015 as well as from Collins’ perspective in the 1860s.

It was interesting to see that Collins has a preference for unusual marriage plots in more of his work than just The Woman in White, and to question just how prevalent the marriage plot was in Victorian literature; in what I’ve read previously, it seems like the only thing going on in Victorian life is marriage and the intrigues surrounding it. Is there anything but marriage in Victorian life, or is it just the most relatable part?

Mr. Fairlie’s protest about others’ propensity to burden him with unnecessary details, irrelevant, in his eyes, to his own life assures the reader of his lack of affection for anyone but himself and causes us to doubt the reliability of his narrative. He relates that Fanny was given “two letters, one for me, and one for a gentleman in London. (I am not a gentleman in London–hang the gentleman in London!)” (Collins 341). While this quotation might make us laugh, we can also apply its sentiment to another character in the text, one whose exclusion of some details and selective inclusion of others is less overt. That character is Walter Hartright.

Walter, in his role as editor of the text, has chosen very deliberately and selectively whose narrative is included in this story, despite his claim that every detail “from beginning to the end of the disclosure” will be related to the reader (9). Yet, we are only offered certain perspectives, and each has been edited to an unknown extent by Walter. Pamela Perkins and Mary Donaghy go so far as to suggest that Walter has “overtly deceived [the reader] about his motives,” arguing that he claims to be recording the narrative to establish Laura’s true identity, but is in fact more concerned about property and his own heroic status (Perkins & Donaghy 394). He is editing the text according to what interests him, just as Mr. Fairlie only wishes to hear what is absolutely essential to him.

It is important to note which perspectives we are given access to, and under what circumstances. In terms of reliability, Marian’s diary is perhaps the only account in the novel which was written unprompted by Walter, and even so, we are unsure the extent to which he edited it, or even if we are presented the diary in full. Similarly, we never hear from Laura, around whom the entire plot revolves. Her trip to the continent after her marriage to Sir Percival is the largest span of time left unaccounted for by the narrative, and this in spite of “her letters” which she writes to Marian during her travels (Collins 200).

One possible explanation behind Walter’s exclusion of Laura’s written account from the narrative might be that he does not wish to read about her time with Sir Percival. Yet, Marian’s diary, to which Walter has access, informs us that “the name of her husband is only mentioned in her letters, as she might mention the name of a friend who was travelling with them” (200). We are left to wonder why, then, Walter has chosen to essentially silence Laura.

Perkins and Donaghy comment that Marian is similarly oppressed by Walter in the latter half of the novel, and that “she becomes shadowy and less interesting” (396). The Woman in White is a text in which the women are smothered under the ‘protection’ of Walter, and in spite of his good intentions, we are left with women who are shadows of their former selves. It is never made clear whether Laura’s mental faculties are fully recovered, and formerly independent Marian, content with the prospect of teaching Walter and Laura’s children to say “‘We can’t spare our aunt!'” resigns herself to a life of domesticity (621).

For the entirety of the novel thus far, we have been struggling with who and what can be trusted. From the personal accounts, to the shady mystery person who put them all together, we don’t have a firm grasp on the truth. Mr. Fairlie even explicitly states that his account is by no means accurate. How then, do we discern the truth from the falsities of the unreliable narration? I think that we could look to characters that are so far removed from the situation that they couldn’t possibly have a bias.

Nina, Laura Fairlie’s Italian greyhound has no reason (or presence of mind rather) to attempt to deceive the reader. A dog’s reaction to a person is a perfect judge of their character for there are no ulterior motives, simply instinctual reactions. During Mr. Gilmore’s account, he recounts the dog’s reactions to both Sir Percival Glyde and Mr. Hartright. In regards to Sir Percival, Nina “barked and snapped” (134). Dissimilarly, instead of reacting in the same violent manner when in the presence of Mr. Hartright, “the whimsical little brute falsified [Mr. Gilmore’s] expectations by jumping into [Mr. Hartright’s] lap and poking its sharp muzzle familiarly into his hand” (141). There is clearly a contrast in how Nina perceives both men. Her adverse reaction to Sir Percival suggests something threatening about his character.

Here the novel is urging us to see Nina as a perfect and unbiased judge of character. If this is true, we can then derive that Sir Percival Glyde is inherently bad. Though this is not new information, it is the only time we receive this knowledge as fact. This animal does not understand ideas of class, wealth, power or any human social constructs for that matter. It is looking through a lens completely devoid of any of the influencing factors that make the narrators’ so untrustworthy. The dog only knows is who is agreeable and who is not. This simple binary makes her judgment the most reliable.

In the same vein, children possess this same kind of unbiased judgment before they are socialized and introduced to societal teachings and norms. If we equate Anne Catherick, who is described multiple times throughout the book as childlike and innocent, then it would follow that Anne’s judgment is trustworthy as well. Though she is closely involved with the plot, one could argue that she is far enough removed mentally to be trusted. By possessing the mental faculties of a child, she has no reason to deceive us—she may not even be capable. Just like Laura’s dog, Anne possesses the same distaste for Sir Percival. At the mere mention of his name she is sent into a horrified frenzy. Both Nina and Anne are presented as more reliable than the narrators’ and should be trusted primarily.

The issue of trusting the narrator has become very important. As we get more involved with the story, the more imperative it becomes to know what is true and what is not. Those unaffected by society and its influences, in this case animals and children, seem to be the only characters we can trust. I wonder then, what the significance of Count Fosco’s animals is and why he can command them? Or what it really says about Blackwater Park that they senselessly murder stray dogs?

One particular moment within the text that grabbed my attention and made me even frustrated with the novel was on page 338. The moment Mr. Fairlie’s narration begins he takes it upon himself to declare, “I will endeavor to remember what I can (under protest), and to write what I can (also under protest); and what I cant remember and cant write, Louis must remember, and write for me. He is an ass, and I am an invalid: and we are likely to make all sorts of mistakes” (336). Here Mr. Fairlie states that he as a narrator cannot be trusted. The fact that Mr. Fairlie is openly claiming within the beginning of his narration that he cannot attest to the absolute truth within his writing forces us to read this section of the novel with great scrutiny, as we readers simply cannot fully trust what is being said about the events in any way. How are we to know what is being withheld and what is correct? The declaration of this that Mr. Fairlie openly states about himself not only forces the reader to question his validity, but it also forces the reader to wonder why Marian, a strong and intuitive woman, is able to trust Mr. Fairlie to help out Laura amidst her engagement troubles. If Mr. Fairlie cannot be trusted as a narrator, how can he be trusted as an advocate for Laura? Not only does Mr. Fairlie force the reader to question his trustworthiness and accountability throughout the story, but Laura also shows moments when she does not seem to be ‘remembering’ the full truth, as seen within her conversation with Marian after she speaks with the woman in white down by the boat house. The fact that the narrators at times show signs of forgetting or openly claiming that they may not be writing the full truth is very problematic, because it forces the reader to question the authenticity of all that is said and happening.

“Any woman who is sure of her own wits, is a match, at any time, for a man who is not sure of his own temper.”

From this passage, we can infer than Marian is suggesting the necessary, submissive role of a wife in the Victorian Era. First, she writes, “Any woman who is sure of her own wits”, which has two main ways for interpretation. These two interpretations could also be put together to form one, which is what I believe is the most plausible. It may simply mean an educated woman, someone who has had access to books and teachings. It may also indicate a woman who talks back, or is more clever than a woman should be. Then, she states, “a man who is not sure of his own temper.” Here, readers can infer that she means a man with a bad temper who is unaware of it—-until brought out by his wife. The whole quote put together by “is a match, at any time” implies that Marian is fully aware of a woman’s place in this time period. A clever woman will be put in her place by her husband, possibly by use of violence. Marian is also saying that educated, clever women get beaten more, because they feel superior to most wives—-they may even be smarter than their husbands. Marian’s tone seems rather calm about this matter, but even so, this passage implies that Marian is hinting at her concerns about Laura and Sir Percival’s relationship. It appears that she is worried that Sir Percival is beating Laura behind closed doors, or perhaps even using sexual violence, to get her to obey him. As readers have seen throughout the novel, Laura is a smart, educated woman, but one would not expect her to talk back. However, something tells us it probably does not take much for Sir Percival to lose his temper.