威尔基柯林斯《白衣女人》中劳拉和安--毕业论文

威尔基柯林斯《白衣女人》中劳拉和安 --毕业论文
【标题】威尔基?柯林斯《白衣女人》中劳拉和安
妮命运的对比
【作者】宋秋丽
【关键词】生活环境;个人性格;支撑力量
【指导老师】赵洪尹李雷
【专业】英语
【正文】
I. Introduction
William Wilkie Collins was a famous writer of Sensation Fiction in
19th century. He was a contemporary (and friend) of Charles Dickens and
he wrote
a series of stories and novels fitting into the genre then known as “Sensation Fiction”, but which today we see as belonging to the early beginnings of Detective Fiction on one hand and of Horror on the other. His best-known works today are The Woman in White and The Moonstone, but he wrote very many other novels and short stories, almost all of which are worth reading. Collins was thought as the father of Detective Fiction in England and the breathtaking tension of his
narrative created a new literary genre of suspense fiction, which profoundly shaped the course of English popular writing. He used his writing to uncover the gentle and harmonious veil of
the propertied class.1 The book The Woman in White is a good example.
The Woman in White was published in 1860 and soon become one of the most popular novels of the 19th century as the deceit, love and various unmasking ensue that explain the strange confinement within an asylum of Anne Catherick—the woman dresses in white. The mysterious woman in white is narrated by draughtsman and artist Walter Hartright and various other characters within the tale. The story begins with Walter's late night
meeting of the titular woman dressed in white who he rescues from a group of pursuers. Walter goes to work in the service of the selfish and unpleasant Mr. Fairlie as a drawing instructor and in doing so meets his niece, Laura, who strongly resembles the mysterious woman in white. Walter falls in love with Laura, but naturally there is a hitch. Laura does love Walter but is engaged to Sir Percival Glyde. In order to get the property, Sir Pencival and Count Fosco kill Anne and bury her with the name of Mrs. Glyde while
send Laura to the asylum to take the place of Anne. Finally, through the hard fight against the vicious power, Walter helps Laura regained her social position as the name of Laura Fairlie and her new baby brings property to her which comes from Mr. Fairlie. However, Anne has died in terror as there are no male relatives show concerned on her, no man helps her. This book
discloses the corruption of Britain’s judicatory system and flogs the hypocritical, avaricious and cruel of bourgeoisie by leading
ladies’
miserable experience.
This thesis attempts to analyze the reasons or elements which affect people’s fate and lives by the comparison of fate between Laura and Anne in The Woman in White. It also tries to find a way of how to survive and
develop in a fixed society.
II. The fate of Laura and Anne in the novel
Laura Fairlie and Anne Catherick are two major roles in The Woman in White and both of them like to dress in white. Their fate are developed and changed with the plot and made deep impression on readers. These two sisters share some resemblance but also have many distinctions.
A. The similar fate of Laura and Anne.
1. Their father—Philip Fairlie
Laura and Anne have lots of resemblance in their out appearance, personal characters and healthy conditions which mainly inherited from their father Mr. Fairlie.
Anne Catherick shares father, Philip Fairlie with Laura Fairlie even though they live in different places. Anne Catherick is the daughter of Philip Fairlie and Mrs. Catherick while Laura is the daughter of Philip and Mrs.
Fairlie. However, there are few people include Anne herself know
that Anne is the daughter of Mr. Fairlie in fact. As both Laura and Anne look like their father and both of them like to dress in white, they look exactly alike
that when Laura comes back to Limmeridge House to declare her social position, there is no one dares to say she is Laura. In Walter Hartright’s words: “If ever sorrow and suffering set their profaning marks on the youth and beauty of Miss Fairlie’s face, then and then only, Anne Catherick and she would be the twin-sisters of chance resemblance, the living reflexion of one another” 2 and he also writes: “There stood Miss Fairlie, a white
figure, alone in the moonlight; in her attitude, in the turn of her head,
in her complexion, in the shape of her face the living image, at
that distance and under those circumstances, of the woman in white”3 when he reads Mrs. Fairlie’s letter. All of the words tell the reader that their out appearance are similar or even the same with each
other’s.
In Anne’s words and deeds, or in Sir Pencival’s description, she has something wrong both in body and mind. Sir Pencival Glyde says: “She’s
just mad enough to be shut up, and just sane enough to ruin me when she’s at large.” 4 Count Fosco describes her that: “But the serious heart-disease, under which she labored, was beyond the reach of all moral palliatives.”5 Laura’s the same as Anne. She is so ill in body and mind that only under the care of Marian and Walter can she live. Her friends don’t
dare to tell her thrilling things or even the terrible truth when
she runs into a predicament. She has a bad health such as her headache. Besides, she is easily to get into anxious that a trifling noise can trouble her.
2. The adversities they suffered
These two unfortunate sisters undergo countless adversities which mainly produce by Sir Pencival and Count Fosco. Successively, unjustly shut up in a lunatic asylum and pursue by the constant threat of further incarceration when they escaped.
As there’s no Marriage Register of his parents, Sir Pencival Gl yde has no right to inherit the fortune and the name of Sir, so he forged a Marriage Register in Welmingham Parish Church under the help of Mrs. Catherick many years ago. This is the fatal secret that Anne Catherick often talks about
in the novel and “at the madness of guilty distrust which has made him (Sir
Pencival) imprison Anne Catherick in the Asylum, and has given him over to the veil conspiracy against his wife, on the bare suspicion that the one
and the other knew his terrible secret.”6 The life in the Asylum makes great harm on Anne’s body and mind that just mentioning the name of Sir Pencival can make her scream. Walter Hartright says: “the
instant I pronounced that
name, she started to her feet; and a scream burst from her that rang through the churchyard and made my heart leap in me with the terror of it. The shriek at the name, the reiterated look of hatred and fear that instantly followed, told all.”7
Sir Pencival marries Laura only for her property, not for love. Before the marriage, he tries his best to fawn on Laura and pleases her. As soon as he achieves his aim, he quickly changes his attitude. In
their honeymoon trip, Laura asks him with deep feeling that whether he would build a tomb
as the tomb of Cecilia Metella. His answer is that if he does build a tomb, it will be done with her own money and he wonder whether Cecilia Metella had a fortune and paid for hers. He insults and reprimands her only because of some trivial matters and even imprisons her. When Laura refuses to sign her name on the unknown file, he shouts to her and even threats her. He keeps her in captivity as he is afraid that she had known the fatal secret. What he has done on Laura is guilty and cruel as a husband.
Comparied with Sir Pencival, Count Fosco is more intelligent and savage. It is he that pursues and captures the poor Anne and then formulates the disgraceful stratagem—killing Anne and burying her with the name of Mrs. Glyde while sending Laura to the asylum to take the place of Anne. He hounds Anne to death and takes Laura’s social
position and all of her property even though he is their Uncle. This
vicious behavior causes a fatal wound on the poor sisters both in body and mind.
3. The good aspect of their ends
In a certain extent, both of them have good results at the end because they stay with the people they loved at last.
The poor Anne always dreams of being buried with Mrs. Fairlie. “Oh! If I
could die, and be hidden and at rest with you (Mrs. Fairlie)”, as she
says, “Oh! If I could be only buried with your (Laura’s) mother!
If I could
only wake at her side, when the angel’s trumpet sounds, and the graves give
up their dead at the resurrection!”8 She achieves it at last, a grand funeral and being buried with Mrs. Fairlie forever. The vigilant and m ysterious Count Fosco takes the advantages of these two sisters’ similar out appearance to achieve his shameless conspiracy. In order to get Laura’s property, he kills Anne and buries her in the same grave along with Mrs.
Fairlie with the name of Laura Fairlie and then he get 10,000 pounds legacy successfully.
Laura’s nightmare dispersed gradually with the help of Walter Hartright. Through the hard fight against the vicious power, she regains her social
position as the name of Laura Fairlie and her health is also recovered. Finally, she marries Walter after they suffered so many hardships. After the death of her Uncle Mr. Fairlie, once again, she lives with her sister Marian, her husband and their little baby in Limmeridge House, Cumberland
where she had lived before her first marriage. Her Uncle leaves her a lot of money that she no needs to worry about her family’s living expenses. In a word, she lives a happy and rich life at the end of the novel under
the protection of her husband and the selfless sister.
B. The different fate of these two sisters
1. Different fate in their childhood
Even these two sisters look alike; they have some differences in their life and fate.
Laura was born in a high society. She lives with her parents and Sister Marian and the most important is that all of them are very fond of her. She lives in a steady living environment in which she never worries about food or article for use. She owns a private servant, Mrs. Vesey, like the other girls
in the polite society. She also receives higher education and has a lot of spare time to develop what she loves to do. When she gets sick, there is always someone would take good care of her. As Marian says to Walter that her sister is in her own room, nursing that essentially feminine malady, a slight headache; and her old governess, Mrs. Vesey,
is charitably attending on her with restorative tea. When feels sad or alone, Marian would accompany her and help her exclude the difficulty and anxiety.
Anne has a distinct childhood. Her father never concerned her as he didn’t know he has a daughter named Anne. Her stepfather left out before she’s birth and never comes back. The only one person who shows concern about her early childhood is Mrs. Clements. “There was nobody else, sir, to take the
little helpless creature in hand, my heart was heavy for the child; and I made the offer to bring it up as tenderly as if it was my own”9, as Mrs. Clements says when Walter visits her. Later, Anne meets another woman in
her short and miserable life that is Mrs. Fairlie, during her short trip in Limmeridge House, Cumberland. Mrs. Fairlie helps the poor girl both in education learning and daily life as her own baby. She treats Anne as a daughter of her own and it’s she finds the suitable clothes for Anne. She shows great patience on Anne’s study and believes that the little girl will
catch up with the others on some day.
2. Their youth
Anne and Laura have some different fate in childhood and they distinct from each other in their youth and ends, too. In youth, Laura meets Walter Hartright and quickly fells in love with him. Walter teaches the lovely girl on drawing. It’s a blessed time but soon
destroyed by the marriage of Laura and Sir Pencival. Laura leaves Limmerideg House where she has lived more
than twenty years for Blackwater Park, Hampshire as the status of Mrs. Glyde. During this long period in Limmerideg House, she lives a steady life. The marriage is a turning point of her life. She suffers numerous disasters which
causes by cruel Sir Pencival and Count Fosco. These terrible lives
in Blackwater Park and Asylum left a deep impression on Laura’s mind. She has been divested of her property and her social position as Mrs Glyde or Miss Fairlie. Fortunately, she finally regains her social position, her love and friends through the help of Marian and Walter. To Laura, she has a happy end.
Anne becomes destitute and homeless as she once threatened Sir Pencival that she would speak out his secret. To safeguard his fame and property, the
unscrupulous Sir Pencival put the pitiful Anne in asylum. When Anne escapes from the asylum successfully, to shirk Sir Pencival’s capture, she changes her residence frequently and always lives in a cautious and anxious life. She changes her residence from Hampshire to Limmeridge House, from asylum to London; from Todd’s Corner to Blackwater Park…That kind of life increases the weight of her disease and accelerates her death.
In fact, Anne doesn’t know the content of the fatal secret until
the final
stages of her life. As her mother says: “she had merely repeated, like a
parrot, the word she had heard me say, and that she knew no particulars whatever, because I had mentioned none, we merely turned her empty boast about knowing the Secret into a fixed delusion”.10 When she is caught by Count Fosco, the fear and the heart-disease takes her life cruelly. To sum
up, Anne lives a hard life than Laura.
III. The reason about their fate
A. The reason why they have resemblance
1. The same society they lived
To some extent, the same society gives people resembling fate. Different societies have different social characters. Therefore, the people who live in the society will affect by the composite parts of its culture, economics, politics, law and so on. In 19th century, there was no “ego” to women;
they were only affiliated to their father or husband.
Mr. Fairlie betroths Laura to Sir Pencival even though the man is much order than his daughter. Laura belongs to her father before her marriage and then
affiliates to Sir Penc ival after the marriage. To Anne, as there’s no one plays the role of father, she’s always gadding about.
The legal system in that society has a lot of loopholes which gives an
opportunity to bad fellows. The tragedy can be avoided if the legal system
w ere perfect at that time. They haven’t protected or gave refuge to Anne no matter when she encounter adversities or suffer from agony. The era that Laura lives, is an era of discrimination according to gender. The author of Some Male Images in The Woman in White writes: “According to the law,
women’s property would belong to her husband as soon as she got married”.11 Laura and Anne has been persecuted by hypocritical, cruel and avaricious bourgeoisie. To sum up, women are weak in such kind of society and they are
easily get into troubles and undergo misfortune.
2. The guardian’s dereliction of duty
The guardian plays a special or particularly useful or valuable role in child’s growth.
As the death of Laura’s father, her uncle Mr. Fairlie takes the custody.
Mr. Fairlie is a selfish and neurasthenic bachelor who has
physically and mentally disease. Firstly, he regards his responsibility and obligation for Laura as some kind of burden and shirks on it with his utmost strength. He always tries to shift one more family responsibility from his own shoulders to Marian. Secondly, he wants to marry off Laura as soon as he can, so he chooses the earliest day when
Sir Pencival asks the date of wedding. He doesn’t care whether his
niece is happy or not. Instead, what he concerns
is his quite even on the day of Laura’s wedding. As a wealthy uncle, the gift he presents to Laura was only a shabby ring, with his hair for an ornament. Thirdly, almost all of the people know that he is a selfish man. When Laura and Marian get in danger and they want to get help or protection from their nearest male relative, and the head of the family, he accepts their simple request only because he doesn’t want to be involved in trouble. Marian decides to write to him for help as she knows he will do anything
to pamper his own indolence and to secure his own quite.
To people’s great disappointment, as Laura’s uncle, Mr. Fairlie never tries to or been willing to strive advantages for Laura on her property.
Mrs. Catherick is the guardian of Anne Catherick. But the wicked mother seems to hate it—as if the poor baby is in fault!—from the day she is born. She
doesn’t love the pitiful daughter at all as “she was only coveting easy
and comfortable life and seeks for personal peacock.” 12 She e ven takes
advantage of other people’s sympathy on her daughter to achieve her own aims. The selfish mother is indifferent to Anne and even sends her
to the asylum instead of takes good care of her poor daughter. She
traces her runaway daughter only because she wants to prevent her from doing mischief. To Anne’s miserable life in asylum, she has the audacity to say she had done her duty as a mother. In fact, she hasn’t fulfilled her duty as a mother.
When Walter tells Mrs. Catherick that her daughter’s obi tuary
notice, “She put that extraordinary question without the slightest change in her voice, her face, or her manner. She could not have appeared more
perfectly unconcerned if I had told her of the death of the goat in the enclosure outside”.13 That’s m akes one hard to believe that the indifferent woman is the mother of the poor girl. Mrs. Catherick has never shows her love for Anne and never fights against Sir Pencival for Anne’s advantages and rights. So, Mrs. Catherick is one of factors that mainly
caused Anne’s adversity.
3. The similarities of their characters and other factors
The same aspect of the characters is an important reason of why Anne and Laura have resembling fate.
Firstly, as the favor to white clothes, both Laura and Anne are puerility.
When Walter talks with Anne in the graveyard, he takes notice of her facial expression: “she looked up at me, with the artless bewilderment of a child.”14 Her naive character is also shows from her sticking at being dressed in white to commemorate Mrs. Fairlie.
The author Wilkie Collins describes Laura as quaint, childish earnestness. At the early time that Walter teaches her drawing, he says that: “In those
few words she unconsciously gave me the key to her whole character, to that generous trust in others which, in her nature, grew innocently out of the sense of her own truth. I only knew it intuitively, then, I know it by experience, now.”15
Secondly, they are easily being agitated. When Anne hears or even thinks about Sir Pencival, her mood wil l be out of control. She can’t—she
daren’t—she forgets herself as mentioning of it (Sir Pencival). Laura can
be agitated by all the strange thing or person. When she takes a walk with Marian in Blackwater Park, the stranger who is far away from them can make
her tremble. When Marian gets sick in Blackwater Park, what she can do is just to cry and frighten.
Being weak is another character and is one of the factors which leads to their disasters. Anne doesn’t dare to visit Laura for the great fear of Sir Pencival. In this aspect, Laura is much worse than Anne as she yields to fate instead of doing her best to strive for her happiness. She even says to Marian: “I must submit, Marian, as well as I can, let my uncle have his way. Let us have no more troubles and heart-burnings that any sacrifice of
mine can prevent.”16 A meeting with stranger can make her speak incoherently and worries for a long time. The best example is the meeting with Anne Catherick in Blackwater Park even though the poor Anne just comes to help her.
Besides the reason of their characters, the same appearance also hints about their tragedies in the asylum. Count Fosco takes the advantages of these two sisters’ appearance and then thinks out the dark scheme and trick—changing their name and social position to seek Laura’s property.
Their weak body gives the chance to the bad fellows to succeed the conspiracy.
B. The reason about their different fate
1. Living environment
People’s living environment can more or less affect their fate no matter in what kind of society. There are different levels or classes in society which decides people would have different living manners.
Laura was born in purple and she has elegant deportment. She has received higher education and has her own favors. She plays the piano very well and
has a lot of time to learn drawing. The rich life enables her to employ Walter as her tutor. Even she becomes a poor lady after she escaped from asylum, what she does is just painting while Marian is doing hard homework. During this hard time, Marian and Walter work hard and careful in their use of money and food. But in order to cure
Laura’s disease, they are generous. They use money to investigate the conspiracy and help her regain the interest of life. As she always lives with Marian, she never or seldom felt lonely.
No matter how rich or poor, she can get good treatment as soon as
she gets sick. In her life, only the time she spends in asylum and Blackwater Park is horrible.
The poor Anne is a pitiful sight. She is an illegitimate child. The lonely
and helpless child was born in a poor family. She has never felt the love which comes from her father. As mention to her father, the only word she can say is: “Father? I never saw him. I never heard mother speak of him. Fath er? Ah, dear! He is dead, I suppose.”17 Life is hard since the lack of love from her mother and father. Besides, the bad healthy condition makes her situation worse. If she has been born in a higher society, she would have been good treated, her illness would have been healed and she would
have met someone whom loved her deeply like Walter. In fact, the poverty and solitude aggravates her disease and then leads her to death. The hard living environment is a direct factor to her adversities.
2. Prop in their lives
These two sisters undergo adversities with the missing of their father. But the people they meet in their lives affect their ends more or less. These spirits prop gives great support to poor Anne and Laura and helps them pass through crises.
The re are mainly three persons who take over the role of Laura’s
father—Walter Hartright, Marian Halcombe and Mr. Gilmore willing.
Walter Hartright is a kindhearted, upright and honest youth. His
love for Laura Fairlie is strong and constant. It’s his love that gives the renascence of Laura. As the effect of heredity and the living environment, Walter is only a weak and hesitant youth at the very beginning. After the wandering life in America, he is completely changed: his willpower is stronger; his affection is more steadfast; his mind is more independent.
He still loves Laura after having experienced many vicissitudes of life. If we say the reason why Walter is willing to help Laura is due to his love for her at the beginning, his offering to help her after the marriage is attributed to sympathy and consideration. He states point of departure:
Forlorn and disowned, sorely tried and sadly changed; her beauty faded, her mind clouded; robbed of her station in the world, of her
place among living creatures—the devotion I had promised, the devotion of my whole heart and
soul and strength might be laid blamelessly, now, at those dear feet. In the right of her calamity, in the right of her friendlessness, she was mine at last! Mine to support, to protect, to cherish, and to restore. Mine to
love and horror as father and brother both. Mine to vindicate
through all risks and all sacrifices—through the hopeless struggle against Rank and
Power, through the long fight with armed Deceit and fortified Success, through the waste of my reputation, through the loss of my friends, through
the hazard of my life.18
He helps her only because:
The sad sight of the change in her from her former self, made the
one interest of my love an interest of tenderness and compassion, which her father or her brother might have felt, and which I felt, God knows, in my inmost heart. All my hopes looked no father on, now, than to the day of her recovery. There, till she was strong again and happy again—there, till she could look at
me as she had once looked, and she speak to me as she had once spoken—the
future of my happiest thoughts and my dearest wishes ended.19
He treats her as his poor daughter or sister both in words and deeds. He helps her regain the interest of life and drawing. Finally, through the hard fight against the vicious power, Walter helps Laura regained
her social position.
Marian is a woman in gender, but her mind and behavior like a man. Women are weak in that society and only seem as an appendage of her
father or husband. But Marian is different because she owns a beautiful
soul, a clever head and independent characters. She dares to take off her silk gown and the white skirt in order to eaves-drop evil plan in that kind of society.
The Typhus fever nearly takes Mari an’s life but she successfully recovers
and rescues Laura from asylum. She shows her noble characters when Sir Pencival insults her that she is only a guest in Blackwater Park and shouldn’t involve in his family affairs. For Laura’s benefit, she lays aside his insulting remark and stays in Blackwater Park as she says: “Thank
God, that faithful love helped me, and I sat down again, without saying a word.”20 It’s her who contacts the lawyer Mr. Kyrle to
protect Laura’s right, and collects data which provide s clue to investigate the conspiracy.
She plays a key role in Laura’s life.
The old lawyer Mr. Gilmore treats Laura as his own daughter. He has tried his best to strive for Laura’s advantages in property. He shows his love for Laura by saying that if he has not been an old bachelor, towards a
daughter of his own; and he is determined to spare no personal sacrifice in her service and where her interests are concerned.
But there’s only one person that gives the poor Anne selfless help—Mrs.
Clements as the prop of maternal love or friendship. She loves and protects
the poor Anne from Anne’s birth to death. She nurses Anne when she is a baby and brings her up by hand. She makes Anne’s first short-clothes,
teaches her to walk. When Anne is frightened by Walter, Mrs. Clements comes out boldly and shouts to Walter. To protect Anne, she follows the tracks of her when Anne insists that she must pay a visit to Laura in Blackwater Park. She can’t help crying about the pitiful Anne, when she gets the news of Anne’s death. The kindhearted woman accompanies Anne in the remainder
of her life.
Finally, Anne has died in terror as there are no male relatives shows concerned on her, no man helps her.
IV. Conclusion
The Woman in White is not simply a great mystery story; it is also a novel of very high order which chooses the world of crime and mystery as its legitimate domain. The breathtaking tension of Collin’s narrative created a new literary genre of suspense fiction, which profoundly shaped the course of English popular writing. The author succeeds in making the readers being
concerned for the leading lady’s fate all the time. Besides the breathtaking story, the distinctive literary feature makes this book not
only a good ratiocinative novel but also a world-renowned classical work.21
The different living environment and prop make Anne and Laura have different fate, while the fate of living in a same society and the similar characters lead them to suffer cruel persecution. They manage to escape from the adversity with the aid of their friends and lovers. These friends give their
hands to these two poor sisters and change their tragedies more or less. Through the comparison of fate between Laura and Anne in The Woman in White, this paper attempts to tell the reader that people’s fate can be affected by their living social environment, the prop in their lives and personal characters. In a fixed society, if one wants to get a
better life, he or she must try to find the way of how to catch or seek help from his or her surroundings since the help or prop will have an important effect on one’s
future.。