Inheritance And Rebellion

The Woman in White is one of the first major works written by Wilkie Collins, the English novelist adept at writing mystic stories in the nineteenth century. The book, after making its debut in the form of serialization in the magazine All the Year Around, immediately won great popularity among the Victorians and also received great compliments from Charles Dickens. Collins earned himself as much attention as Dickens did during the Victorian Era. However, as time passed by, both he himself and his works fell into oblivion for quite a long period of time. It is not until the 1930s did they regain the close attention from critics and scholars.After carefully reading the whole text, I have discovered that in this book Collins presents to readers a panorama of the mid-Victorian years. As a significant period in the history of transforming the whole nation into a prosperous empire that the sun never sets, it bore both the signs of the new-emerging capitalistic culture and the marks of the traditional feudal society. People living during this special period carried the same characteristics as their predecessors, showing allegiant devotion to the accepted norms and values, while some began to fight a new way in leading a different life. Therefore, from this brand-new perspective, borrowing two key words"habitus"and"transgression"from cultural study, I plan to analyze this book from four aspects, namely, religion, marriage view, law as well as propriety standard in patriarchal society, so as to re-present the mid-Victorians'inextricable intimate ties both with the new economic productivity and the conventional agrarian society.The first chapter starts from the characters'different attitudes towards Christianity, combining the social background to explore the opposite roles that Christianity played in Victorians'daily life. Chapter Two first analyses the different viewpoints held by the characters, i.e. marriage under bondage and marriage out of love, and further goes on to explore the Victorians'inheritance to acquiesce in the arrangement of parents, as well as the awakening of the rebels who tried to liberate themselves to pursue free love. Chapter Three presents the practice of law-abiders and law-violators, both of whose behaviour can be traced back to the profound influence of the conventional regulations and innovatory expectations in the law. Chapter Four compares the followers of conventional patriarchal norms with the advocators for the capitalistic new ideas, and further draws a conclusion that the coexistence of two economic bases determines the survival of completely different superstructures at that time. Finally, the conclusion part ends with a general overview of the previous four chapters and a comment on both advantages and limitations of the targeted book.