The passage I chose from “The Woman in White” is a description of Laura Farlie by Walter Hartright and it is on pages seventy-four and seventy five. The passage I chose from “The Woman in Black” is a description of Jennet Humfrye and it is on pages forty-eight and forty nine. I chose these passages as I feel they go well together as they are both descriptions but the language used to describe Laura and Jennet is very different and I thought it would be interesting to see the way authors from different periods use language to describe people. Walter Hartright, who is telling this narrative, writes the description of Laura Farlie in “The Woman in White” in first person. The description of Jennet Humfrye from “The Woman in Black” is also in first person and is told by Arthur Kipps who is telling the story. Although both descriptions are written in first person view, they both have different perspectives. Walter obviously likes Laura so he is describing her flatteringly, “Lovely eyes in colour, lovely eyes in form”. The description by Arthur of Jennet is different because he is describing what he sees, “A bonnet type hat covered her head” and he does not know her in person so he cannot say anything about her except for what he sees. He obviously doesn’t like the look of her as when he was saying about her hat all he said was, “A bonnet type hat covered her head” but when Walter was describing Laura’s hat he said, “A little straw hat of the natural colour, plainly and sparingly trimmed with ribbon to match the gown, covers her head, and it throws its soft pearly shadow over the upper part of her face”. This description is much more in depth than that of Jennet and it seems as though he is trying to portray a picture of Laura to the reader.
The language used in the passage from “The Woman in Black”, is fairly simple as there are no complex words and it describes her in shorter sentences and does not describe every detail of Jennet. The language used in the passage from “The Woman in White”, is more complex and has longer sentences. Here is a line from “The Woman in White”, “The charm-most gently and yet most distinctly expressed- which they shed over the whole face, so it covers and transforms its little natural human blemishes elsewhere, that it is difficult to estimate the relative merits and defects of the other features”. Even from this line it is clear that Walter likes Laura as although he says she has blemishes, he calls them “human” so it implies everyone has them. In comparison this is a line from “The Woman in Black”, “She was dressed in the deepest black, in the style of full mourning”. This is not as complex and detailed as the line from “The Woman in White” and by using different words, it gives a fuller description of Laura, “The charm- most gently and yet distinctively expressed”. There is not much imagery used to describe Laura except he obviously likes her so he uses words like “lovely” when describing her. In the description of Jennet, there is quite a lot of death imagery as Arthur meets her at a funeral and she is dressed in black, “in the style of full mourning”. She can also be linked to death imagery as in the end she causes the death of Arthur’s wife and son .He says she looked pale and when things are dead they are pale. Also Arthur describes her looking ill and wasted which can be linked to death imagery, “for not only was she extremely pale…but the skin and, it seemed, only the thinnest layer of flesh was tautly stretched and strained across her bones, so that it gleamed with a curious, blue-white sheen, and her eyes seemed sunken back into her head”. This line sets the atmosphere of Jennet as from the words used it implies that Jennet is associated with death as she is described as being “pale” and dead things are usually pale. I feel that the line, “the thinnest layer of flesh was tautly stretched and strained across her bones” is particularly effective as it makes Jennet seem ill and almost like a skeleton. In the description of Laura, Walter is making her seem like a rare beauty as he says, “and the eyes are of a soft, limpid, turquoise blue, so often sung about by the poets, so seldom seen in real life”.
Although there is no conversation in either of the passages, they are both written as if they are talking to someone. In the passage from, “The Woman in Black”, Arthur is telling his story to his step-children and in, “The Woman in White”, Walter is telling it to the reader as he says, “how can I see her again as she looked when my eyes first rested on her- as she should look, now, to the eyes that are about to see her in these pages?” This is a direct address to the reader and it makes you feel involved with the story as it is addressed to you and seems more personal and more realistic. The description of Laura is much more in depth and precise, “her hair is of so faint and pale a brown- not flaxen, and yet almost as light; not golden, any yet almost as glossy- that it nearly melts, here and there, into the shadow of the hat”. By the description of Laura I think it is obvious Walter is very fond of her as he is very careful to describe her properly and flatter her. However in, “The Woman in Black”, she is not described as fully and he does not try to flatter her so she may have a more realistic description of what she actually looks like. By not describing Jennet as fully as Laura is described, it gives her an atmosphere of mystery, as you do not really know what she is like.
I personally enjoyed reading “The Woman in White” more than “The Woman in Black” as it was much more intricate and surprising whereas in “The Woman in Black”, I thought it was quite predictable and had a simpler plot. “The Woman in White” had many characters that were all different and carefully described but the characters in “The Woman in Black” were not, in my opinion, as realistic or believable. I did not think that the characters in “The Woman in Black were as believable as the characters in “The Woman in White” as the characters from “The Woman in White” were intricately described and although the complex descriptions can be tedious to read, the reader does gain a more detailed view of the characters.
Bibliography: I obtained the dates for when “The Woman in White” was written from the beginning of the book.
