Tag: Wilkie Collins

Baronet, Baronight: Portraying Poverty in “The Woman in White”

     When Walter Hartright visits Old Welmingham, he meets the impoverished settlers still inhabiting the ruinous village. The town is littered with the bones of “empty houses;” some are “dismantled,” while others are “left to decay with time” (495). In a few dilapidated cottages, some inhabitants, “evidently of the poorest class,” struggle to survive on the most meager supplies (495). As a man of good heart, Walter pities such a “dreary scene” (495).

     After a fire breaks out “in the vestry of Old Welmingham church,” Walter is forced to turn to the destitute villagers for aid (495). At first glance, Collins characterizes these “haggard men and terrified women” in a harsh manner (517). For instance, none of the villagers seem willing to help Walter rescue Sir Percival until he offers them “[f]ive shillings apiece” (517). Their desperate “hunger for money” is the only thing that can rouse “them into tumult and activity” (517). This paints them as greedy and selfish. Moreover, they show little regard for Sir Percival’s life as they cheer with “shrill starveling voices” (518). Poverty has altered the villagers on a fundamental level; even their voices show signs of their indigence. Their morals have been similarly corrupted. They rejoice at another man’s imminent death if it means they get a few measly coins.

     Still, Collins cannot help but extol the virtues of a simple life. Walter acknowledges that the villagers’ “hunger for money” is only the “second hunger of poverty” (517). First and foremost, the villagers are desperate for food. Their inappropriate behavior, then, can be explained away by their starvation. The shocking appearance of the village is also reframed in a positive light. Though the village presents “a dreary scene,” Old Welmingham is “not so dreary as the modern town” of New Welmingham, repellingly overcrowded (495). In Walter’s estimation, even “the ruins of Palestine” cannot rival the “modern gloom” of an English suburb (483). The villagers, then, embody a nostalgic return to a simpler, more pastoral way of life in England. Most importantly, the villagers—prelapsarian in their ignorance—have not been corrupted by a lust for status. In the hubbub of village gossip, the villagers speculate on Sir Percival’s rank. “Sir means Knight,” one resident remarks (520). “And Baronight, too,” another replies uncertainly (520). By using the term “Baronight,” Collins emphasizes his sharp critique of the gentry’s laughable vanity. 

     The use of the nonce word “baronight” appears in other great classics of English literature, from Frances Burney’s Camilla (1796) to Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Fenton’s Quest (1871). Most famously, a servant in Jane Austen’s Persuasion (1817) mistakenly refers to William Elliot as a prospective “baronight” (154). This, of course, is a great insult to the vain members of the Elliot family. How dare the working class not respect their superiors? As editor Robert Morrison points out, the servant’s “malapropic combination of ‘baronet’ and ‘knight’…indicate[s] his indifference to the gradations of rank” (154). Critic Juliet McMaster argues that the term “baronight” suggests that “being a baronet can be a somewhat benighted condition” (116). In other words, the lower classes of England do not understand or care to understand what a baronet is or does. Is power still considered power if those underneath you are unaware of it or fail to respect it?

     This same question can apply to The Woman in White. Sir Percival Glyde spends his entire life protecting his title as a baronet. He commits a capital crime to maintain his rank, and he dies trying to cover his tracks. In Austen, such an obsession with the Baronetage “is made not only comic but contemptible” (McMaster 116). The same can be said of Collins’s characterization of Sir Percival. When none of the villagers remember Sir Percival for being a baronet, the reader cannot help but scorn, pity, and laugh at the dead nobleman simultaneously. By trivializing Sir Percival’s title, Collins implicitly suggests that rank is superfluous. It is better to be poor and honest than a lying man of status and wealth. While on earth, Collins argues, we must lead lives worthy of salvation, whether we are rich or poor. If we fall into the fires of hell, we all become “dust and ashes” just the same (517). 

Works Cited

Austen, Jane. Persuasion, edited by Robert Morrison, Harvard University Press, 2011.

Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White. Penguin Classics, 2003. 

McMaster, Juliet. “Class.” The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, edited by Edward Copeland and Juliet McMaster, Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 115-130.

Water Color? I Hardly Know Her: Subliminal Sexuality in “The Woman in White”

     As Mr. Walter Hartright confesses his love for Miss Laura Fairlie, his latent sexual desires bubble to the surface. Hartright reluctantly admits to the reader that Laura has led him away from the “narrow path” of propriety and respectability (Collins 66). His “situation in life” usually acts as “a guarantee against any of [his] female pupils feeling more than the most ordinary interest in [him],” but Laura is an exception to this rule (66). In Hartright’s mind, she experiences the same “unacknowledged sensations” that he does (67). These shared sensations imbue each of their interactions with an electric sexual energy, regardless of how innocent they may appear on the surface. 

     In a society where physical contact is frowned upon, even the shadow of a touch can arouse excitement. When Hartright recalls shaking Laura’s hand each “night and morning,” he acknowledges the eroticism in the slightest brush of their fingertips (66). To him, this ritual is not a mere formality; it represents a temporary transgression of social norms. If even for a moment, Hartright can feel Laura’s skin against his own. Their drawing lessons adopt a similarly sexual charge. Hartright cannot get “close to [Laura’s] bosom” without “trembl[ing] at the thought of touching it” (65). He longs to feel “the warm fragrance of her breath” on his skin (65). His body thrills as she watches “every movement” of his phallic “brush” on the canvas (65). It is reasonable to believe that these close encounters feed Hartright’s fantasies “in the quiet and seclusion of [his] own room” (64). He must keep his “hands and eyes pleasurably employed” to avoid other, even more pleasurable employments (64). Sin encroaches, and sexuality threatens to invite it into the most hidden recesses of the heart.

     Other domestic acts and subtle word choices also imply sexual connotations. When Hartright claims that he “always notice[s] and remember[s] the little changes in [Laura’s] dress,” for instance, he inadvertently admits that he ogles at her body (66). Hartright considers Laura’s figure as alluring as a “Syren-song” (66). In many nineteenth-century paintings, these seabound seductresses are depicted without a shred of clothing; perhaps Hartright imagines his beloved in much the same way. One thing can be said with certainty, however; with Laura around, the “monotony of life” becomes “delicious” (66). This adjective choice invokes kissing, licking, and other erotic activities involving the mouth. The days become so sweet that they beg to be consumed. Perhaps, in Hartright’s eyes, the same occurs with Laura’s body.

     Once considered “a harmless domestic animal,” Hartright evolves into a tertiary sexual predator (66). It only takes one encounter with erotic possibility for Hartright to discard his “hardly-earned self-control” as if he “had never possessed it” at all (66). As Hartright himself points out, the very same happens “to other men, in other critical situations, where women are concerned” (66). Collins demonstrates how quickly propriety crumbles under the immense weight of passion. As the novel progresses, I am curious to see if sexual desire is strong enough to fracture other Victorian customs, particularly the reticence surrounding the erotic.

Walter’s First Encounter With Laura and Marian- Gender, Whiteness, and Class

As with most readings of gender, it is important to look at it with an intersectional lens- one that acknowledges how different identities interact to form statures of privilege. I believe that developing a deeper understanding of the way in which Walter describes women in this novel can shed light upon Collins’ social commentary on gender, class, and race. When Walter first meets Marian, he says, “She left the window- and I said to myself, The lady is dark. She moved forward a few steps- and I said to myself, The lady is young. She approached nearer-and I said to myself, The lady is ugly!” (p.34). Looking at the syntax of these few sentences shows several interruptions from commas and hyphens, making every phrase short and abrupt. These short, abrupt sentences give the reader an unflattering feeling as they meet Marian with Walter, one that is unsettling. Just as he is initially confused and skeptical, as is the reader who feels Walter’s hesitation through the syntax. Walter continues to describe Marian as having a complexion that was, “almost swarthy,” and ,”the dark brown on her upper lip was almost a mustache, 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….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 incomplete,” (p.35).  The last sentence of this quote is worth noting as it explicitly states what a woman needs to be considered beautiful; gentleness and pliability. There is an emphasis in this description on both gender and race as Marian is described as having very masculine, strong, dark features. This contrasts the very feminine women Walter meets throughout the novel, especially Walter’s love interest, Laura, who is described as, “fair and pretty,” (p.37). Later, Walter describes her with similar language, saying that she is a, “light, youthful figure…with a little straw hat of the natural colour, plainly and sparingly tripped with ribbon to match the gown, covers her head, and throws its soft pearly shadow over the upper part of her face. Her hair is so faint and a pale brown,” (p.51). It was fascinating for me to read this description of Laura, as Walter is so clearly infatuated with her, but the feature that makes him so attracted to her is her inherent whiteness. This, along with her stereotypical femininity that portrays her as weak, are almost exclusively what Walter is attracted to. The description of Laura and Marian contrast drastically because of two dichotomies: masculine vs. feminine and dark vs. light. The diction Collins uses here seems very deliberate to me, in that the author seems to be explicitly showing Walter’s inherent biases. The words “light,” “fair,” “pale,” “faint,” as I see it, are Collins’ way of portraying the standard of beauty for women in the Victorian Period. I believe that I need to read more of the book to better understand Collins’ social commentary, but for now, it is clear to me that Collins is setting up a reality of modern society in which beauty is equated with whiteness and weakness. This standard excludes women like Marian, who are intelligent, kind, and interesting. Making Marian such a likable character yet “unattractive” pushes me to believe that Collins is in fact critiquing a world in which a woman’s value is based upon her beauty. However, it troubles me that there are no women in the novel that are both attractive and intelligent.

The Male Gaze and the Female Art Object in The Woman in White (1859) and Laura (1944)

Laura is a 1944 film noir directed by Otto Preminger and based the 1941 novel Ring Twice for Laura by Vera Caspary (IMDb). There are several eerie coincidences between this text and The Woman in White. (As it turns out, a number of online sources suggest that Caspary was inspired by Wilkie Collins’s 1868 Moonstone—though none of my sources cites a primary source for this information). In terms of characterization, a wealthy young woman named “Laura” Hunt is courted by multiple men—one named “Waldo,” who is a combination of Walter’s possessive condescension; Count Fosco’s aged, effeminate, well-dressed, world-wise manipulation; and Sir Percival’s constant concern with appearances. Plot-wise, Laura is known to be murdered before the film begins, and Detective Mark McPherson spends much of the film trying to pin down the details of her murder—at which point he discovers that Laura is alive, and spends much of his time trying to find evidence of what really happened. Narratologically, the story is established through first-person narratives by multiple characters—though unlike Laura Fairlie/Glyde/Hartright, Laura Hunt does tell a portion of her own narrative. One of the most interesting parallels between the texts occurs when Detective McPherson falls in love with Laura’s portrait, before he has met her and while he still thinks she is dead:

The Male Gaze: McPherson falls in love with Laura- or at least her portrait  (http://www.screeninsults.com/images/laura-painting.JPG)

Though the portrait is not McPherson’s own handiwork, this scene is parallel to Walter’s enamourment with his own watercolour portrait of Laura, almost in substitute of Laura herself: “A fair, delicate girl in a pretty white dress, trifling with the leaves of a sketch-book, while she looks up from it with truthful, innocent blue eyes… 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” (Collins 52). In both situations, a woman is defined by her physical features through a work of art that she herself did not create, and her worth is determined by the interest she can arouse in a man—in the effect the gendered “art” of her appearance has on his “pulse,” his body. Though both McPherson and Hartright claim to love their “Lauras” in the end, there is something discomfiting about the way they reflect on the beginnings of their love by referring back to their attraction to a portrait, rather than to the woman who inspired it—their male gaze is directed at a female art object, and their male hearts have undisclosed motives. The eerie discomfort created when McPherson falls in love with (the theoretically dead) Laura’s image exemplifies the creepiness of Walter’s consistent memory of his watercolour portrait of Laura, even after the woman he fell in love with is lost to child-like behaviors resulting from trauma. An attentive reader must question the validity of a “love” that roots itself first and foremost in a stylized image.