{"id":2025,"date":"2025-02-08T04:13:32","date_gmt":"2025-02-08T04:13:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/?p=2025"},"modified":"2025-02-08T04:13:32","modified_gmt":"2025-02-08T04:13:32","slug":"accounting-for-the-unaccountable-exploring-binaries-in-wilkie-collins-the-woman-in-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/2025\/02\/08\/accounting-for-the-unaccountable-exploring-binaries-in-wilkie-collins-the-woman-in-white\/","title":{"rendered":"Accounting for the “Unaccountable”: Exploring Binaries in Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wilkie Collins regularly explores binaries in The Woman in White<\/em>. During Walter Hartright\u2019s initial encounter with Miss Marian Halcombe, one such exploration is depicted as Miss Halcombe lists the ways that she and her sister, Laura Fairlie, differ from each other:<\/p>\n

My father was a poor man, and Miss Fairlie\u2019s father was a rich man. I have got nothing, and she has a fortune. I am dark and ugly, and she is fair and pretty. Everybody thinks me crabbed and odd (with perfect justice); and everybody thinks her sweet-tempered and charming (with more justice still). In short, she is an angel; I am\u2014Try some of that marmalade, Mr. Hartright, and finish the sentence, in the name of female propriety, for yourself. (37)<\/p>\n

The picture that Marian paints of herself is admittedly bleak. She is \u201cdark and ugly\u201d while her sister is \u201cfair and pretty.\u201d She grew up \u201cpoor\u201d and remains so now while her sister \u201chas a fortune.\u201d Unlike Laura, Marian is thought to be \u201ccrabbed and odd\u201d and decidedly unpleasant while Laura is \u201csweet-tempered and charming.\u201d Marian even goes so far as to say that Laura \u201cis an angel\u201d while intentionally refusing to outwardly state what Laura\u2019s presumed \u201cdivinity\u201d would make her based on the binary that she has presented thus far: a demon. The negative way that Marian views herself when placed up against her sister seems to suggest that she has internalized society\u2019s views of what it means to be the perfect lady (as embodied by Laura), and she has found herself decidedly lacking according to society\u2019s standards. Marian\u2019s internalized negative self-image is emphasized by the asides she includes in her speech, where she argues that the dispositions that she and Laura have been labeled with are perfectly justifiable. However, what I find so interesting about Marian\u2019s introduction is that she does not attempt to share this view with Hartwright to garner sympathy; rather, she treats her perception of herself and her sister as fact. Here, Collins seems to present the tension between the complexity of feelings and the narrative structure that he has chosen for his text (that of a strict recording of facts, much like a court document). Marian elaborates on this tension, explicitly stating that despite the reason for it appearing to be \u201cunaccountable,\u201d she and Laura \u201care honestly fond of each other\u201d (37). Thus, Marian makes clear that despite the way that she and her sister seem binarily opposed to each other, they are in fact as close as two people can be. Therefore, I would argue that implicit in Marian\u2019s assertion is the notion that perhaps the binaries that Collins presents in The Woman in White <\/em>are not as clear-cut as they seem, and by extension, neither are the characters that they attempt to categorize.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wilkie Collins regularly explores binaries in The Woman in White. During Walter Hartright\u2019s initial encounter with Miss Marian Halcombe, one such exploration is depicted as Miss Halcombe lists the ways that she and her sister, Laura Fairlie, differ from each other: My father was a poor man, and Miss Fairlie\u2019s father was a rich man. … Continue reading Accounting for the “Unaccountable”: Exploring Binaries in Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4744,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[135984],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2025-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4744"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2025\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}