{"id":295,"date":"2015-02-20T04:06:42","date_gmt":"2015-02-20T04:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/?p=295"},"modified":"2016-08-24T15:51:38","modified_gmt":"2016-08-24T15:51:38","slug":"anne-or-laura","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/2015\/02\/20\/anne-or-laura\/","title":{"rendered":"Anne? Or Laura?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
http:\/\/www.tate.org.uk\/art\/artworks\/walker-the-woman-in-white-n02080<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Anne Catherick is the Woman in White. In the novel, The Woman in White<\/em> by Wilkie Collins, Anne\u2019s character initially serves as the catalyst for many crucial events that occur. For example, when Walter first sees Anne, he is left with an overwhelming amount of curiosity. Then later, when Anne reacts negatively to Sir Percival, it serves as indication that he has evil tendencies, thus causing her to react this way. As the novel progresses, Anne is frequently looked to in hopes of providing information about certain tendencies or histories of other characters. Toward the end of the novel, it is even revealed that Laura and Anne are half-sisters. There is no question Anne\u2019s role in the novel is vital.<\/p>\n

However, despite Anne\u2019s significance in the plot of The Women in White<\/em>, she finds an untimely, and rather anticlimactic farewell. After hearing Percival\u2019s aspiration to obtain her money in the event of her death, Laura becomes more unsettled and desperate than she already is. However, if Laura were to fake her death, she would then be released of her obligation as Glyde\u2019s wife. Luckily, at this exact point in the novel, Anne becomes terminally ill and dies. Although Anne is the title character and many of the early plot points revolve around her, she coincidentally dies in a very non-extraordinary way. Further, no one is even aware that she has died, because it is stated that Laura has died instead. After everything, Anne was not even officialy awarded her own death. In Walter\u2019s narration it is stated, \u201cIn the eye of reason and of law, in the estimation of relatives and friends, according to every received formality of civilised society, \u2018Laura, Lady Glyde\u2019 lay buried with her mother in Limmeridge churchyard\u201d (413). The focus of the novel consistently revolved around Laura.<\/p>\n

Since the novel was published, there have been copious interpretations and revisions, both in writing and in other art forms. One intriguing interpretation is the painting, The Woman in White<\/em> (1871) by Frederick Walker. What is so fascinating about this piece, in particular, is the facial expression of the woman. The piece is very simple, and mundane. The colors incorporated are quite earthy and bland. However, the appearance of the woman is very frantic as she exits the room, as if she were running away from something. When looking at this painting, thoughts of Anne\u2019s anticlimactic death resurface. In a painting such as this, perhaps \u2018the woman in white\u2019 is not Anne at all, but rather Laura. Could this interpretation be a depiction of Laura, disguised as Anne, finally able to run from Sir Percival? For it is realized that, regardless of Anne\u2019s importance, the focus of the novel was always, ultimately, Laura.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Anne Catherick is the Woman in White. In the novel, The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, Anne\u2019s character initially serves as the catalyst for many crucial events that occur. For example, when Walter first sees Anne, he is left with an overwhelming amount of curiosity. Then later, when Anne reacts negatively to Sir … Continue reading Anne? Or Laura?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2617,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[111380,108029],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-360-victorian-sexualities","category-spring-2015"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295","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\/2617"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}