A ghost story relies on atmosphere, often conveyed through physical phenomena such as the weather, gothic buildings, vivid settings, and on hints and half suggestions such as those made by the landlord in The Woman in Black.2 The one thing that human beings do not know is what happens when we die. Ghost stories feed that fascination with the after-life and because of that very often have a Christian moral. Susan Hill presents the theme of the supernatural from a Christian perspective. She sees the world struggling between the forces of good and evil, and although good prevails (Arthur Kipps survives his ordeal because he is essentially good and innocent) innocent people pay a dreadful price. Many people in Crythin Gifford have suffered the loss of young children in violent circumstances, including Mr Jerome.
Throughout the novel Susan uses the weather to signal when terrible things are about to happen. Kipps’ journey begins in a peasouper, a London fog, which suggests that his journey is to be clouded in mystery,7 and he travels to a place with an eerie name: Crythin Gifford. Other places have a connection with the supernatural, for example Nine Lives Causeway (a cat is said to have nine lives and thus escapes death regularly) and Gapemouth Tunnel (which suggests the jaws of Hell).8 Kipps’ destination is shrouded in mist. There appears to be a conspiracy of silence surrounding Drablow’s affairs, and nobody will help Kipps — all he receives is warnings and evasions.
Susan Hill’s use of pathetic fallacy is particularly effective when Kipps spends the night alone in the haunted Eel Marsh House. The storm rages outside, ‘the house felt like a ship at sea battered by the gale that came roaring across the open marsh’. The images that Hill uses here are vivid. The house is like a ship in a storm, the gale is personified as it batters the house and it metaphorically roars.
Spider picks up on ghostly phenomena before Kipps does. All these elements build up the reader’s fear of the supernatural.
The first time the ghost appears to Kipps is at Alice Drablow’s funeral, where she seems like a harmless sick young woman. He (and the reader) is caught unawares but there are clues that she is a ghost. She seems to appear and disappear without movement. Her appearance is juxtaposed by the line of serious-looking children at the school railings headed by a boy who does not return Kipps’ smile. One interpretation is that they too are apparitions — ghosts of all the children who have died in unnatural circumstances. Sceptics point out that school playgrounds often adjoin churchyards and that children are naturally curious and have a taste for the macabre.
The reader is however drawn towards belief in the supernatural. None of the characters appear to be particularly fanciful, interesting or imaginative.10 Indeed, Samuel Daily (who, as his name suggests, is an everyday sort of man), when the question is put to him as to whether the deaths of children may be genuine accidents, says simply, with a ‘set and resolute face’: ‘You may find it hard to believe. You may doubt it… We know.’
The climax of Arthur Kipps’ story is when Kipps’ young son is catapulted from a pony trap and dies instantly as he hits a tree when the ghost steps out in front of the horse. Kipps is forced to witness this event as Jennet Humfrye was compelled to witness the drowning of her young son in the marshes off the Nine Lives Causeway. In this way, Hill presents the supernatural through careful manipulation of plot and structure as these two events are like a mirror image of each other. This provides symmetry to the structure.
In comparison to other novels, The Woman in Black is relatively short. Susan Hill’s strength as writer is in creating atmosphere where the reader is seduced into a terrifying supernatural experience. The structure of the novel is carefully crafted to this end, the effects are created through skilful use of language and there is no unnecessary development of the minor characters, as this would detract from her purpose to thrill, chill and terrify.
