{"id":933,"date":"2016-09-30T07:09:24","date_gmt":"2016-09-30T07:09:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/?p=933"},"modified":"2016-10-13T12:49:41","modified_gmt":"2016-10-13T12:49:41","slug":"visual-influences-of-walters-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/2016\/09\/30\/visual-influences-of-walters-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"Walter’s Mind and Visual Influences"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Ruskin, who was read about in Richard Altich\u2019s \u201cVictorian People and Ideas: A Companion for the Modern Reader of Victorian Literature” is an English art critic. He believes that \u2018the quality of man\u2019s inner life was determined by the presence or absence of beauty in his everyday surroundings\u201d (281). By examining Ruskin\u2019s conviction in relation to the language that Collins uses to describe certain environments, and people in his story, readers are exposed to what men, (and in this post, specifically what Walter\u2019s) \u2018inner life\u2019 may be like.<\/span><\/p>\n

Walter\u2019s love interest, Miss Laura Fairlie, is a character who is most evidently seen as beautiful. Collins writes in the beginning of the story about Laura\u2019s appearances saying that she is, \u201c the woman who first gives life, light, and form to our shadowy conceptions of beauty. […] Take her as the visionary nursling of your own fancy\u201d (52). Using this lense, and assuming that Collins agrees with Ruskin\u2019s opinion (which I don\u2019t totally think he does, but that isn\u2019t exactly important right now), the reader can see that when Walter is with Laura, because she is the one who, \u2018first gives life\u2019 and is so visually pleasing, he is most content; he finds her the most beautiful. Though this quote is so early in the story, it is important as it shows that there is attraction between Walter and Laura.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because we know that the state of a man is based on the presence and absence of beauty in his life, when Laura seemingly passes, the reader can conclude that Walter is not quite at peace inside. Her death brings him into hysterics. When Walter\u2019s mother approaches him to bring him the news of Laura\u2019s death Collins writes, \u201cI saw something in my mother\u2019s face which told me that a secret oppression lay heavy on her heart. […] You have something to tell me\u201d (407). At this point in the story, because of knowing the great significance of the visual appearances of Collins\u2019 characters, one realizes that Walter\u2019s \u2018inner life\u2019 is disturbed immediately when he sees his mother\u2019s contorted face. Walter\u2019s newly conflicted state of mind, is a result of Laura, the most beautiful, her death. Supposing man\u2019s inner well-being is mostly dictated by visual cues, Walter\u2019s internal, rapidly growing, feeling of strife is more directly a result of his mother\u2019s reaction. His strife just gets worse after actually hearing the news.<\/span><\/p>\n

This conflict that Walter is experiencing leads him to dramatics. Shown as Walter\u2019s inner dialogue and as his actions, Collins writes, \u201cOh death, thou hast thy sting! […] I laid my head, on the broad white stone, and closed my weary eyes on the earth around […] Oh, my love! my love! my heart may speak to you <\/span>now<\/span><\/i>!\u201d (409). These extreme internal declarations of exasperation make me ask that, had Walter been a woman, would he have been subjected to an asylum due to his extreme emotions, and seemingly hysterical character? At this point in the story, his emotions and actions do not seem all that different than those of Anne Catherick\u2019s. The difference between the two is that Walter does not externally express his thoughts and feelings whereas Anne, many times, seemingly cannot help but wear her heart on her sleeve. <\/span><\/p>\n

There are many ways to apply Ruskin\u2019s idea of beauty dictating man\u2019s emotional state to <\/span>The Woman in White<\/span><\/i>. This examination of Walter\u2019s inner self does not even begin to scratch the surface of all that could potentially be uncovered using this lense. But even these small insights learned from applying Ruskin\u2019s belief help to develop a better understanding of the male characters in this story, and how their minds may work.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Ruskin, who was read about in Richard Altich\u2019s \u201cVictorian People and Ideas: A Companion for the Modern Reader of Victorian Literature” is an English art critic. He believes that \u2018the quality of man\u2019s inner life was determined by the presence or absence of beauty in his everyday surroundings\u201d (281). By examining Ruskin\u2019s conviction in … Continue reading Walter’s Mind and Visual Influences<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2956,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[111380,111423],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-360-victorian-sexualities","category-fall-2016"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933","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\/2956"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}