Collins has been widely praised for his fully drawn portraits. In her Introduction to this Modern Library edition, Anne Perry asks, “What is there in The Woman in White that transcends the change in culture from 1860 to the present, and beyond?” How would you answer this question?Ĥ.

The story…is told throughout by the characters of the book.” Was the experiment a success? What is gained and what is lost in telling the story exclusively through first person narratives?ģ. In his preface to the 1860 edition of The Woman in White, Collins wrote, “An experiment is attempted in this novel, which has not (so far as I know) been hitherto tried in fiction. Citing examples from The Woman in White, how would you define this Victorian literary genre?Ģ. Wilkie Collins has been hailed as the creator of the “sensation novel”. (Questions issued by Penguin-cover image, top-right.)ġ. What qualities does each narrator bring to the story? How does each change our view of the characters? Could the story have been told from a single viewpoint, and if so, whose? The use of multiple narrators was one of Collins's favorite storytelling techniques. (In many ways they are much closer to Collins's own bohemian sensibilities than Hartright and Laura.) In what sense might this be true? How would you interpret the story's conclusion- especially Marian and Fosco's fate-in this light?Ħ. One critic has suggested that Marian and Fosco might be considered the true protagonists of The Woman in White.

When Hartright returns from Honduras to restore Laura's true identity, he brings tactics he had first used 'against suspected treachery in the wilds of Central America' to 'the heart of civilised London.' Why is he forced to work outside the laws and conventions of society to achieve his aim? Why did he have to leave England and return in order to make this change?ĥ. Why is Marian so mesmerized by Fosco, who she says 'has interested me, has attracted me, has forced me to like him'? Why is Fosco able to see Marian, despite her physical unattractiveness, as a 'magnificent creature'?Ĥ. In the novel, how is pedigree intertwined with deception and immorality? Where do the lines blur between servants and the served? How are the underprivileged used as a screen for viewing the upper-crust characters?ģ. But Collins lived a life on the periphery of respectable English society that his father would not have condoned. 'You will make aristocratic connections that will be of the greatest use to you in life,' Collins's father told him when he started school. How does her double, Anne Catherick, illuminate the dark side of that ideal?Ģ. Laura is presented as an ideal of Victorian womanhood, obedient, respectful of social conventions, and willing to sacrifice her own wishes for others. ( Below you'll find two sets of questions: one from Penguin and the other from Random House.)ġ.

The woman in white book