The Woman in White Analysis

If you've ever watched a Masterpiece Theater movie, you're probably familiar with mid-Victorian settings. Moors! Country Houses! London Fog! Horses and carriages, hoop skirts and top hats! Yea...

Trying to describe the narrative technique in The Woman in White can make you crazy, Anne Catherick-style, but we'll give it a go. The Woman in White is a take on what is known as an epistolary nov...

Creepy old manors, supernatural events, terrible secrets coming back to haunt people (sometimes literally), and all things scary and weird: yup, The Woman in White is your textbook gothic novel. Th...

This novel revolves a lot around the split between cold, hard facts and emotion. This divide crops up in the narrative, the themes, and especially in the tone. Nailing down the tone in this book is...

If you're wondering what the heck "epistolary" means, have no fear. An epistle is another word for a letter, and calling The Woman in White epistolary is a way of saying that it's written as a seri...

Nope, it's not a story about a blushing bride walking down the aisle.So what is The Woman in White referring to? Well, the most obvious answer is Anne Catherick, the mysterious crazy woman who alwa...

The Woman in White has a very tidy "happily ever after"-style ending. The good are rewarded. The bad are punished: by the novel's end, the two main villains are dead. As a bonus, another highly obn...

This book is a pretty fast read, considering how long it is, and there are plenty of cliffhangers and action to keep things moving right along at breakneck speed. But the main thing that makes this...

We meet most of the major players here as Walter's story—and his life-altering involvement with both Anne and Laura—get set into motion. Walter falls in love with Laura here as well, which beco...

Walter starts learning about Anne Catherick's mysterious past and investigates matters with Marian; he also learns that Laura is engaged (and isn't very happy about it).Things go very well for Walt...

Part 1 of the novel. Everyone meets, Walter and Laura fall in love, and Laura marries Sir Percival.Part 2 of the novel. Laura suffers through a disastrous marriage to Sir Percival.Part 3 of the nov...

Wilkie Collins was really good friends with Charles Dickens. Collins wrote extensively for Dickens's periodical publications and served as an editor of his journal All the Year Round. The two even...

Like any good Victorian novel, this book is all about hinting at sex… without showing any of the naughty stuff. On a surface level, characters are well-behaved, repressed, and capital-P Proper. B...

Thomas Chatterton, poet (2.1.3.77)"I go—and leave my character behind me," quote from Richard Brinsley Sheridan's play The School for Scandal (2.1.3.77)Isaac of York, character in Sir Walter Scot...