Class, Industry, and Social Place Theme Analysis

Collins’ novel The Woman in White praises industry, hard work, and the “self-made” man. Nineteenth-century British society was rigidly organized by class, but social mobility was made possible through the rise of the middle class and the self-made man, meaning a man without family connections or land who became wealthy through his own efforts. The Woman in White reflects British, middle-class values of the nineteenth century: the virtuous, hard-working protagonist, Walter Hartright, triumphs over dishonest social climbers like Sir Percival Glyde. However, Walter is only able to transcend his class because of his noble character and industrious efforts. The conclusion of the novel—the marriage between Laura Fairlie and Walter—blends what many Victorians believed to be the inherently noble qualities of the upper classes (virtue, refinement, and an interest in culture) with the industry and innovation of the self-made man, who was encouraged to better himself and grow wealthy in order to emulate the noble classes.

Although nobility is implicitly linked with virtue in the novel, some upper-class characters like Count Fosco and Mr. Fairlie are associated with laziness and duplicity. Mr. Fairlie presents himself as frail and incapable; an affectation common among the aristocracy of the eighteenth century that was meant to demonstrate their extreme delicacy and genteelness of character through their physical helplessness. Mr. Fairlie ignores Marian’s pleas for help throughout the novel and is a parody of aristocratic pretensions and eccentricities, which had fallen out of fashion by the mid nineteenth century among the British public. Count Fosco, similarly, presents himself as affectedly genteel and sensitive. Like Mr. Fairlie, Count Fosco cultivates a love for the arts—such as the opera, which he attends at the novel’s close—and uses this presentation of himself to suggest that he has an unusually refined and aristocratic temperament. Mr. Fairlie and Count Fosco have a lot in common and even get on fairly well when they meet in person because of these shared affectations. Mr. Fairlie represents the other extreme of Count Fosco: he is utterly useless in his excess, while Fosco is wildly corrupt in his. Collins suggests that Mr. Fairlie and Count Fosco are not examples of true nobility, as they use outdated affectations to show off their rank in society and, underneath this, are self-serving and corrupt.

In contrast, the novel celebrates hardworking, middle-class characters, like Walter, who earn the right to transcend their place in society, which potentially makes them more deserving than those born to nobility. The novel contains first-person accounts from several servants, such as Mrs. Michelson, and middle-class people like lawyers, as well as the perspective of the upper-class characters like Marian and Mr. Fairlie. By placing the testimony of people from various classes alongside one another, Collins suggests that people of all ranks contribute to society and showcases the social mobility and mixing between classes which was beginning to take place in nineteenth-century society. Professor Pesca, who is an Italian friend of Walter’s and is revealed to belong to the same political organization that Count Fosco has betrayed, represents Count Fosco’s opposite, or foil, within society. While the Count is untrustworthy, Pesca is warm, loyal, and industrious. Although Collins demonstrates a tendency towards distrusting foreigners in his novel, which reflects his nineteenth-century values of British exceptionalism, he undermines this tendency in his presentation of Pesca as an asset to British society because of his hardworking personality and enthusiastic embrace of British values. Sir Percival Glyde is also presented as the opposite of Walter; while Walter is a hardworking, middle-class man, who values industry and activity over wealth and rank, Sir Percival Glyde tries to evade work by forging his parents’ marriage certificate in order to inherit a fortune that he is not entitled to. While Walter is rewarded for his hard work, Sir Percival Glyde is punished for attempting to exceed his social rank without earning this privilege through industry. This demonstrates Collins’ belief in the superiority of “self-made men” like Walter over those who seek titles and rank for their own sake through dishonest means.

Despite its praise for hardworking middle-class characters, the novel’s resolution supports the nineteenth-century belief that the upper classes are an important and aspirational part of British society. It is never questioned that Laura is entitled to and deserving of her inheritance. She is presented from the beginning to the end of the story as a virtuous person and an innocent victim of Count Fosco and Sir Percival Glyde, who wish to steal her rightful place in society. This suggests that Collins, and his middle-class audience, generally supported the social order that the class system imposed in the nineteenth century. Walter, for his part, is motivated to work hard, and to pursue the mystery of the woman in white for himself because he cannot afford to pay a lawyer. He feels that his poverty has been a good thing in this sense because “the law never would have obtained an interview with Mrs. Catherick,” which is the key to discovering Sir Percival’s secret. Collins therefore feels that a certain level of poverty is beneficial in society as it incentivizes people to work harder and allows new ways of thinking to enter the establishment. While Sir Percival is punished for trying to transcend his social position undeservingly, Walter is rewarded because he has not tried to achieve upward mobility dishonestly but instead has earned his elevated status (by marrying Laura) through his own efforts and virtue. Although the class system was changing in the nineteenth century, there was a general sense among the middle class that, despite the benefits of these changes, some type of social order should still be preserved.