Review | The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

“This is the story of what a woman’s patience can endure, and what a man’s resolution can achieve.”

This is considered to be among the first mystery novels. The tone and mood of the novel is mysterious, uncanny, suspenseful and unsettling. The entire plot has tension, and yet the first line of the novel fixes a clear border between men and women!

It makes the reader fall in love with its plain but resourceful heroine Marian Halcombe, and teases us with the delightful prospect that she will become the principal agent bringing the villains to justice. But, alas – she becomes ill and she returns to the plain woman’s typical Victorian role of loyal sister, allowing the returning hero Walter Hartwright to tie up the loose ends of the plot.

The novel has the typical description of the main heroine being beautiful and feminine is delicate, and the one (Marian) who is brave and intelligent is masculine and not good looking! But then again, why do I expect something else from a Victorian novel? The Victorian women are supposed to wait for an ideal marriage, and not go around looking for a mystery to solve.

This stereotypical issue should not stop you from reading this book. As put by Goodreads, the book pursues questions of identity and insanity along the paths and corridors of English country houses and the madhouse, The Woman in White is the first and most influential of the Victorian genre that combined Gothic horror with psychological realism.

So yes, this is a fantastic mix of mystery and gothic, and you all should try it!

 

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