The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins and The Ideas of Family, Law, and Sisterly Affection

In the Victorian era, Wilkie Collins composed a renowned novel to transform the ideas of family, law, and sisterly affection. Leila Silvana May, from North Carolina State University, critiques Collins’s book The Woman in White in her journal article “Sensational Sisters: Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White”. According to her, Collins structures his main theme around the elegant English ménage, “the sororal relation as the exemplar for the creation of his narrative, and . . . allows his Victorian readers edification, titillation, and horror at the same time, for sibling love . . . justifies the familial organization upon which society is based, while its potential anarchic and erotic intensity threatens to undermine the very edifice that contains it” (May 82-83).

To give background to her argument, May bases much of her evidence on the culture of historical 19th century Victorianism. Before she begins to dive into Collins’s novel, May points out significant aspects of the time period. First, May claims that the Victorian culture was fixated with the foundation of class society, and specifically, family formations. The family organizes itself around high morality and class society. Family grows stronger through sacrificial service and loving-kindness to one another. The parts all contribute to the whole of society through being a united household. In the Victorian era, the sororal (sister) bond is “the purest, most untainted, and ‘natural’ component of the family” (May 82). In other words, the sororal bond is the most powerful part of the family. “The Woman in White, then, is a treatise on sisterhood” (Collins) (May 82). May utilizes other novels of the time period like Sense and Sensibility, Wuthering Heights, Frankenstein to support her claim about Collins’s potential concentration on the sisterly bond. Collins branches off these Victorian-based novels to give another picture of the society’s foundation on sisters. May claims that the same edifice holding the 19th century standard of siblings’ immaculate love “is the edifice that can be undermined by lawlessness and erotic intensity”; in other words, it can override the family core (May 82).

Specifically in The Woman in White, Collins toys with the idea of breaking societal laws through the fluctuating relationship between Marian, Laura, and Walter Hartright (May 85). May states, “In sensation fiction, sisters are expected to conform to nineteenth-century conceptions of purity, constancy, and fidelity, both toward other siblings and toward the family at large” (May 82). Collins redefines sensation fiction – literature that elicits large adrenal effects from its intense plots – through the “transgressive possibilities” of the passion between sisters when they meet the chaotic world of Rank and Power (Rubery) (May 84-85).

In this novel, family dynamics are portrayed through the sibling relationships between Marian and Laura, Laura and Anne Catherick, and Marian, Laura, and Walter (May 83-84). May compares the sibling relationships in The Woman in White with the proper Victorian picture of a family to reaffirm her position on the sororal importance. However, May also states that the families formed in this novel are sensational because they are “not families at all” (May 83). In the Fairlie household, the masculinized Marian acts as mother and sister to the feminized Laura Fairlie, the secret sister to the ghostly Anne Catherick (May 83-85, 89). The only possible father figure resides in Laura’s uncle, Mr. Fairlie; unfortunately, his extreme ego and self-conceit disable him from interacting with society in a regular fashion (May 83). As a result of this, Laura and Marian’s relationship is even more strongly based on one another. May says the “orphaned sisters live in a self-contained world of love, fidelity, respect, and erotic fulfillment” (92). The sororal relationships seems like a blissful relationship in the beginning of the novel because Laura and Marian rely completely on one another. As the book progresses, the two half-sisters are placed in quite different roles to see if their relationship will stand the test of temptation. The erotic desires of Walter Hartright, the Law of the Father, and the general Victorian law expose these temptations (May 93).

First, May thinks that Collins uses Walter Hartright most charmingly to attempt tainting the picture of sisterhood. For Walter is not only the protagonist in the novel, but also the narrator of the book; therefore, readers should read Collins’s thoughts from a male perspective. Walter initially comes into the story through the meeting with the mentally confused sister of Laura, Anne Catherick (Collins). This first meeting, May pronounces, jumpstarts the plot’s exposition. Walter then travels to the Fairlie household and meets Marian. He is erotically attracted to Marian’s backside, but as soon as she reveals her masculine front, he retracts his desires. Yet Marian and he form a strong bond of “siblinghood” that grows deeper as the plot thickens (May 94). When Walter meets Laura, he is immediately romantically attracted to her, and she returns his attraction. In this criticism, May declares that Laura and Walter’s feelings for one another are possibly destructive towards Laura and Marian’s relationship; they are “feelings which necessarily must come between the two sisters” (May 92). Marian, May says, subtly fights against the couple’s hidden affection by announcing Laura’s previous engagement with Sir Percival Glyde (May 92). Marian appreciates Walter for accepting her charge that he leave their household to protect Laura’s feelings, but she is also subtly attempting to save her own sisterhood with Laura (Collins) (May 93).

Second, Laura’s marriage with Sir Glyde threatens what Marian just fought against: separation from her sister. The villain in this case comes from the Law of the Father, whom Laura feels inclined to obey (May 93). In the Victorian lifestyle, obedience is especially required of ladies of rank (May 91) (Rubery). Laura’s obedience to her father’s dying wish overrules her wish to heed to Anne’s letter of warning, Walter’s feelings, and her own dislike of Sir Glyde (May 93). May says that Collins’s picture of the father’s role in Laura’s life shows the lack of purity in the family. The sister bond is both more knowledgeable and powerful than any other relationship, because although it is dangerous in its passion, it is most wise (May 90-92).

Third, the general Victorian law of the time tests the sororal connection. Using the example of Sir Glyde and Laura’s marriage, May argues that the sisters’ true nemesis lies in general injustice (May 87). Whether in the form of a man or a paper document, the desire for satisfaction in sisterhood versus the world’s rules presents the sisterhood bond’s constant battle. In this case, Sir Glyde personifies the injustice. He comes along, marries Laura, takes her away and leaves Marian to fight for Laura as she previously did in the case with Walter (May 94). Anne demands justice for Laura as well, sending her a cryptic letter against marrying Glyde. Laura still marries him out of obedience to the cultural law (May 93).

However, May argues that this same cultural law brings back the blissful sororal bond between Marian and Laura (May 94). The same relationship that tempted to ruin the bond between the metaphoric family of Laura and Marian is the same one that creates a real family: Walter Hartright’s marriage to Laura (May 94). Previously, when Marian, Walter, and Laura are living in the slums, the sororal bond suffers from Marian and Walter’s disturbing relationship with Laura – Laura is daughter and sister to Marian, who is wife and sister to Walter, the father, brother, and lover to Laura while at the same time being husband and brother to Marian (Collins). May states that the “incestuous relationships” are a picture of the untamed sororal love, but eventually, the sibling love “tames itself” through the form of a real family (May 84). May argues that the relationships transition from a state of total lack of control in the Victorian didacticism sense to “normal” when the family becomes one (May 84). Collins uses these relationships to show the power of the sororal bond, hinting that it can transcend the laws of marriage, family, and culture. May says that Collins transforms the Victorian “vision of familial bliss” by rightfully getting rid of the evil fighting against said vision while “incorporating those evils into the very structure of that bliss” (May 84). In Collins’s mind, he lets the Victorian familial idealism be threatened before triumphing in sensational fashion into a new form of sibling love. By using the abnormal family affairs, Collins goes against the purest form of the Victorian household (Rubery). In the end, Marian and Laura’s relationship revives through Collins’s fairytale ending and creates a satisfaction for his critical readers who elevate the family as the highest social standing (Rubery) (May 84-85).

With the cultural law comes the Victorian social classes. In this novel, Leila associates Collins’s characterization of Marian and her resulting relationships with others as a break from societal norms. Sir Percival Glyde and Laura are a good match in society’s eyes because of their similar rank in social class structure, but Laura loves the middle-class Walter Hartright. Laura also appreciates her half-sister, Anne Catherick, even though Anne is in the working class. The largest break from Victorian culture, though, is in Laura and Marian’s relationship, because even though Marian is not a part of any social class, Marian and Laura love one another in the face of life or death (May 88-89). May claims that the victory over Rank and Power – namely, the cultural rules – comes from Walter’s marriage with Laura and Marian’s agreement to become their children’s aunt (May 88, 95-97).

After closely reading through May’s argument, her clever way of supporting her ideas with historical facts and evidence from the book make her stance extremely persuasive. She uses the Victorian model of the 19th century to contrast the ways in which Collins relates his own life to the life of his characters (Rubery). In doing so, she sets Collins up as the “sensational novel” author the Victorian age established him to be. His writing is deemed radical because of his family relationship transformations; May effectively capitalizes on these changes throughout her paper. She appropriately says she is making an “empirical claim” instead of “tautological truth” at the forefront of her paper, but backs up her claims with examples and facts of Victorian culture that makes her claim more of a truth than many other critics’ claims. For example, in her discussion of class structure, she dissects each main person in the novel to see if the actions of Marian, Laura, Walter, Sir Glyde, and Anne destroy the social classes. When Walter argues that the Law is subject to whoever has the most money, and yet he triumphs over Sir Percival Glyde and Count Fosco in receiving Laura’s true hand in marriage, he overcomes the societal barrier of class structure. The class does not matter to Laura; she loves him for his internal characteristics (May 98).

In an important part of May’s argument, though, she states that Marian fights against Walter’s feelings for Laura for her own erotic attachment to him. Marian and Walter do form a strange relationship that displays itself most completely in the slums of London, but when Walter and Laura get married, Marian becomes their housekeeper (Collins). Readers may disagree with this idea because of Collins’s portrayal of love and friendship between Marian, Laura, and Walter. Marian always looks at Walter as a brother, no matter how weirdly they demonstrate their sibling affection. Their love is similar to how Marian and Laura show their own sororal love: Marian and Laura kiss one another multiple times. In this time period, those actions would be seen as homosexual, but Marian and Laura treat it as just the highest form of a sororal bond (May 92).

Overall, though, May’s criticism of Collins’s novel as a sensational twist on the Victorian era’s cultural elevation of the family as the central structure of society is effectively persuasive in its purpose. May successfully uses historical evidence, Collins’s own beliefs and words, and her own interpretation of the text to suggest Collins’s desire to present the power of sororal bonds. Marian, Laura, and Anne Catherick are three sisters related by dysfunctional family relationships, and yet they form their own real family in the end as a result of their sacrificial, erotic, and faithful love for one another. The Woman in White may portray many ideas about the Victorian era, but May’s critical reading is convincingly credible in its suggestion that Collins illustrates a “treatise on sisterhood” (Rubery) (May 82). The bonds of sisterhood are more powerful than the hardships of the world, the love of others, and even the cultural laws of Rank and Order (May 92).