“She approached nearer -- and I said to myself (with a sense of surprise which words fail me to express), The lady is ugly!”. Although Miss Fairlie takes Walter’s love, his heart has room for more than one woman, however the second woman who Walter has a strong relationship with, has a much more verbal and active relationship with him. Marian Halcombe is far from Walters’s lover, however, it is as if the two share a brain, they click the minute they first meet. This was unusual for a Man and Woman in those days, as usually, a man would have one main woman in his life, his wife/spouse. From a distance, Marian looks a prize, as her body shape is almost perfect, but up close she is “ugly”. Walter and Marian conduct the investigation into Laura Fairlie, “The Woman in white” and Sir Percival Glyde.
Walter and Marian have a manly relationship, a very unusual, mutual friendship; they are similar in the way their minds work. Marian is a prime example of characteristics, which are specific to a male, as she is an investigator, in general she is a masculine figure. The way she thinks, speaks and acts, implies she would feel comfortable being in a males position. She even says “If I only had the privileges of a man, I would order out Sir Percival's best horse instantly, and tear away on a night-gallop, eastward, to meet the rising sun”, this gave me the impression, she considers life as a male often and can identify the benefits. Also, unlike other women, she thinks outside the box, she considers the larger picture. For example, no ordinary woman would ever consider going against a male, or challenging his thoughts or ways. Marian does this in conversations with Walter often, expressing herself clearly, which, in Victorian times, was unheard of in an ordinary home. Marian also says (in the quote above) “If only I had the privileges of a man” which again, gives evidence towards her wishes too be a man, which any middle or upper class Victorian, would find strange and perhaps even assume the Woman in question had something wrong with her mind.
Throughout The Woman In White, Walter becomes a hero, not just for Laura, for everyone. However, his role of detective would not have gone nearly as well or straight forward as with the help of Marian Halcombe. Marian becomes A heroine taking the right hand side of Walter Hartwright as Detective, again, she shows a more masculine side, as detectives, police and judges etc were almost always Men in those times.
In Limmeridge house, there seems too be a huge male presence, missing from its everyday running. As, the only “man” if he can be called that, in the house when Walter moves in for the first time, is Mr Fairlie, or more appropriate for my perception of him Frederick Fairy!. Frederick Fairlie cannot be referred to as a man, he is a large, weakling, who really has no control over the goings on in his house and would be oblivious to three thousand immigrants moving into the floors beneath him, all that concerns this nuisance of a creation, is himself and his food. When Walter and Frederick meet, they are clearly two very different personalities and never should be mixed for long, there are few people who Frederick Fairlie can stand too be around for more than two minutes at a time, Walter is not an exception. Although Walter is not the most masculine male too come across, he is a far sight better than Frederick Fairlie, Frederick is panicky, paranoid, feminine, frail, quaint, delicate and a poor excuse for the man of the house. Walter is polite, calm, dedicated and kind hearted. This is one of the only contacts Walter has with Mr Fairlie, but we can perceive the most part of his personality through this short meeting and we can also tell that something changed him, from a family producing man, too a shrivelled old wreck.
Mr Fairlie shows his weakness also, later on in the novel, when he is broken down into giving Glyde the 20,000 pounds inheritance, which was intended for Laura. “On the Tuesday I sent in the altered settlement, which practically disinherited the very persons whom Miss Fairlie's own lips had informed me she was most anxious to benefit. I had no choice. Another lawyer would have drawn up the deed if I had refused to undertake it.” This shows his feminine side and his incapacity with problems, if a problem cannot be solved first time with a simple solution, Mr Fairlie cannot handle it, he cracks and gives in, passing it on too any hands who will take it, from then on, it becomes their problem and no concern of his.
“It absolutely startles me, now he is in my mind, to find how plainly I see him!” Count Fosco, the close friend of Marians, is a slimy personality. He sneaks around, whilst Marion and Walter are playing the role of detective for Laura, he sneaks past the barriers when they are at there weakest (Marian is ill and Walter is away in America) and plays detective for the opposite side. Fosco, is also similar to Marian, in the way he carries female traits, such as his smooth, feminine skin, his obsession with small pets “He seems to be even fonder of his mice than of his other pets, smiles at them, and kisses them, and calls them by all sorts of endearing names” and his love for gossip. This is weak and very feminine for a man of high position like a count, it shows weakness and strangeness in Fosco’s Personality. Yet Marian still seems slightly obsessed with him, constantly thinking to herself about him and perceiving him in different ways.
Gender in The Woman In White is a complicated topic, it is purposely made like this by Wilkie Collins, as I believe it is the main part of this novel, there are so many twists, turns and confusions in the Gender of this novel, it is hard to focus and analyse it at times. But the main focus in this novel, is the swap in gender roles. I think Wilkie Collins based a large part of this novel on the fact that there are so many Gender changes, so as to make it different from any other published or unfinished novel written at the time. He achieves this well, by cleverly using Gender specific characteristics and aspects to create strange “break-the-mould” characters such as Marian, Fosco and Frederick Fairlie. But he then goes further, to create clichéd characters such as Laura and Walter, then mixes them up well with the stranger characters in the story. This creates twists and turns in the story, with a surprisingly balanced finish at the end.
