To what extent is there warning about the future in The Woman in Black?
This is the story of a young solicitor, Arthur Kipps, who is summoned to Crythin Gifford, a small market town on the east coast of the to attend to the funeral of Mrs. Alice Drablow, an elderly widow who lived alone in the solitary Eel Marsh House. There are three main parts in the novel that imply cryptic warnings towards a foreboding future.
The first main warnings in the book occur in his journey to Crythin Gifford, these examples vary through chapters two to three. Before Arthur Kipps leaves for his coach to Crythin Gifford he gives a description of London; “Fog was outdoors, hanging over the river, creeping in and out of alleyways and passages”, through this sentence it is shown already that everything is quite ominous with the words “Hanging over” and “Creeping. Arthur Kipps also writes “such fogs- it was menacing and sinister, disguising the familiar world and confusing people”. This sentence seems very appropriate for what is going to happen further on in the book. The woman in black disguises herself in black, rather like a fog disguises people. She is very menacing and sinister, which confuses the people - this reflects her grief. After Arthur Kipps describes London, he kicks in the fact that all of this doesn’t seem good to him, and expresses “a sense of foreboding about my journey”, the conscience of everyone else always seems to be telling him something, and now this is what Arthur Kipps’ conscience is doing to him. After arriving at his destination and getting to know a few of the citizens in Crythin Gifford, nothing seems to change for him and he feels that his conscience, “was feeling an unpleasant sensation of being isolated far from any human dwelling”. This shows that the place he is in and the place he is making him feel something bad about his journey and about where he is.
