Good Vibrations: The Sensationalization of Masculinity in The Woman in White

Novel: A Forum on Fiction, Fall 2003 by Ablow, Rachel

Such an account of The Woman in White contradicts a common understanding of the novel, which casts it as a defense of virtuous middle-class models of identity as opposed to those associated with the corrupt aristocracy.10 While aristocrats such as Glyde and Fosco define identity in terms of wealth and birth, and hence as something that can be stolen, mistaken, or lost, critics have often claimed, Walter appears to define both himself and his beloved in ways that are inalienable because of their connection with one another's profound inner selves. What Walter's sensational alchemy of identity begins to suggest, however, is that his superiority to Glyde lies not in his commitment to the inalienability of identity, but instead in the effectiveness of his strategies for altering it. In the course of the novel, both Sir Percival and Count Fosco go to extraordinary lengths to steal Laura's identity as well as to alter their own. But ultimately all their efforts fail, given away by the means they use to achieve the transformations. Sir Percival's forgery of a record of his parents' marriage can be observed, traced, and ultimately proven. Count Fosco's attempt to disguise himself by becoming enormously fat can be foiled by the red mark on his arm that proves his membership in, and betrayal of, an Italian secret society. Similarly, their effort to make Laura and Anne change places can be exposed simply by consulting the cab driver regarding the date on which he took Laura to the house where she is supposed to have died. Meanwhile, all Walter needs to do to effect the reverse transformation is to appeal to the proof of his pulses. He sees a woman, calls her Laura, and as the Count would say, "Hey! presto! pass!" the alteration is performed (235). And, in the process, he redefines himself as well, as one whose marriage to a wealthy heiress is legitimate despite the lowliness of the class position in which he began.

The most obvious objection to this claim is that it fails to consider the way the plot of the novel suggests a considerable investment in the continuity of physical identity. As contemporary critics noted repeatedly, Collins's novel has an extraordinarily elaborate narrative. "As the Judge might once have heard it, so the Reader shall hear it now," we are told in the Preamble; with these lines, the novel is framed as a court case, and the reader is established as a surrogate judge who must weigh facts, determine plausibility, and come to a final conclusion (9). Evidence in the form of testimonials, legal documents, medical records, and so forth, is presented with little or no commentary from its compiler, Walter Hartright. As a result, it appears to give rise naturally to a story that makes sense of all the available facts and that has a satisfying conclusion: that Walter's wife is the rightful inheritor of the body, consciousness, and property attached to the name Laura Fairlie Glyde, and that her marriage to Walter is legitimated by the fact that he has identified her correctly. The novel thus appears to fulfill all the requirements of what Alexander Welsh has called a "strong representation": one that, like a criminal trial, "holds the possibility of conviction-in both senses of the word" (2). Yet, despite all these indications of the novel's commitment to an evidentiary narrative-and so, too, to the relation between identity and physical continuity-in the original version of the novel, the chain of circumstances by which Laura and Anne were made to trade places made no sense. In the edition published in serial installments and in the first two three-volume editions, a series of errors in the dates of Laura's departure from Limmeridge House and the dismissal of Marian's doctor and servants created an impossible chronology at the center of the novel.11 As a result, there was no way an attentive reader could conclude that the woman Walter marries is Laura-or anyone else, for that matter-on the basis of the evidence provided. In the words of the critic for The Times who first called attention to the problem, any reader who attempted to piece together the facts would have to conclude that the novel's last volume was "a mockery, a delusion, and a snare; and [that] all the incidents in it are not merely improbable-they are absolutely impossible" (6).