The Woman in White

The Woman in White

by

Wilkie Collins

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Themes and Colors
Evidence and Law Theme Icon
Morality, Crime, and Punishment Theme Icon
Identity and Appearance Theme Icon
Marriage and Gender Theme Icon
Class, Industry, and Social Place Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Woman in White, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity and Appearance Theme Icon

Identity and external appearance are presented as fluid and deceptive in The Woman in White, which centers around a mysterious and deadly case of switched identities. In the novel, identity is closely bound up with public recognition, to the point where loss of public identity is equated with a total loss of self. It is also implied that people develop their identities based partly on how society treats them because of their external appearance. Collins criticizes a society in which public appearance and social identity are viewed as essential aspects of a person’s character. Collins argues instead that external appearances do not necessarily align with or reflect a person’s character.

In The Woman in White, there are sharp contradictions between the way that people look and the way that they behave, revealing that external appearances can be deceiving and do not necessarily offer insight into someone’s personality. When Walter Hartright first meets Marian, for instance, he remarks upon her “graceful” figure. When Marian turns around, however, Walter is shocked because he finds her “ugly.” This undermines the reader’s expectation that Marian will be the beautiful heroine. Marian’s character contradicts this description of her as “ugly”; when Walter gets to know her, he discovers that she is a brave and intelligent woman and does not have an “ugly” personality. Through this discrepancy between Marian’s internal character and external appearance, Collins implies that Marian is far more than she appears to be. The deceiving nature of appearances is especially true of Count Fosco and Sir Percival Glyde, who deliberately present themselves in a certain way to disguise their true characters and identities. The Count, who is a huge, intimidating man, makes a show of caring for vulnerable animals like mice and birds to disguise the fact that he is ruthless and malicious. Sir Percival, who is very handsome, similarly presents himself as charming and polite but is secretly brutish and cruel. Collins repeats this pattern of contradiction between internal character and external appearance to emphasize that a person may not be who they claim or pretend to be, and that deciding a person’s character based off of their appearance can be extremely dangerous.

Although appearances do not necessarily reflect character, identities are closely connected with reputation within society. Collins highlights how reputation is just as unhelpful and misleading in discerning one’s true character as appearances are. For instance, Sir Percival Glyde has concealed his true identity because he is an illegitimate child and not really a member of the nobility, as he pretends to be. He has created a false identity for himself as a Baronet, and as far as anyone in society knows, he is a Baronet. It is only through the discovery of “the Secret” of the forged marriage register that Sir Percival’s identity can be challenged. Sir Percival assumes the appearance of a charming and polite nobleman to create an identity which is far from the truth. Through Sir Percival’s false claim to nobility, Collins critiques those who tie their identity to their name or reputation, arguing that reputation does not adequately reflect one’s real character. Furthermore, Sir Percival’s desperation to protect his constructed identity, and his terror that the secret will be discovered, implies that the loss of public identity is a significant loss in nineteenth-century society. Without his name and reputation as a nobleman, Sir Percival will be reduced to a poor, nameless nobody and will lose the privileges enjoyed by the aristocracy. Sir Percival’s anxieties reveal that he’s not the only one who tries to center his identity around reputation; in the nineteenth century, British society was largely based on reputation and social status. Sir Percival’s use of a false identity—and the fact that few people question the validity of his identity—suggests that nineteenth-century society is easily taken in by the external appearance of rank and importance, even though those things aren’t adequate markers of one’s true character.

Furthermore, identity is presented as something that is not only important to society but is partly formed based on societal expectations. This is demonstrated by Mrs. Catherick’s determination to retain her public identity as a respectable lady, although the community knows Anne’s father was not Mrs. Catherick’s husband. By steadfastly maintaining her appearance as a respectable woman, though, Mrs. Catherick begins to be treated as such by the people in the town. When the minister bows to Mrs. Catherick as he passes by her house, it becomes clear that people in the town now perceive Mrs. Catherick as a respectable woman even if the reader knows that, by nineteenth-century standards, she is not. It is a shift in the public’s perception of Mrs. Catherick that remade her public image, and thus it doesn’t reflect a change in her underlying personality. Similarly, when Count Fosco places Laura in the asylum, everyone around her treats her as though she really is Anne Catherick. By the time Marian frees Laura, Laura has picked up traits that belonged to Anne and is barely distinguishable from Anne in her physical appearance. This change in Laura’s appearance is brought on by the emotional strain of being confined in the asylum, rather than a change in her own nature; it is the expectations of people at the asylum that change Laura’s character. The idea that people will develop similar personality traits if they are treated in the same way suggests that society is partly responsible for forming the habits of individuals and that, if society is too preoccupied by the external appearance of virtue and nobility, rather than with evidence of it through actions, it can easily be fooled by individuals who construct their identities in order to bend to and benefit from social expectations. This ultimately supports Collins’ belief that public identity is constructed, relies on performance, and does not necessarily communicate anything about the internal nature of a person or how they behave in private.

Related Themes from Other Texts
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Identity and Appearance ThemeTracker

The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Identity and Appearance appears in each chapter of The Woman in White. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Identity and Appearance Quotes in The Woman in White

Below you will find the important quotes in The Woman in White related to the theme of Identity and Appearance.
The First Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 2 Quotes

My sister Sarah, with all the advantages of youth, was, strangely enough, less pliable. She did full justice to Pesca’s excellent qualities of heart; but she could not accept him implicitly, as my mother accepted him, for my sake. Her insular notions of propriety rose in perpetual revolt against Pesca’s constitutional contempt for appearances; and she was always more or less undisguisedly astonished at her mother’s familiarity with the eccentric little foreigner. I have observed, not only in my sister’s case, but in the instances of others, that we of the young generation are nothing like so hearty and so impulsive as some of our elders.

Related Characters: Walter Hartright (speaker), Professor Pesca, Mrs. Hartright, Sarah
Page Number: 14
Explanation and Analysis:
The First Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 5 Quotes

But the idea of absolute insanity which we all associate with the very name of an Asylum, had, I can honestly declare, never occurred to me, in connection with her. I had seen nothing, in her language or her actions, to justify it at the time; and, even with the new light thrown on her by the words which the stranger had addressed to the policeman, I could see nothing to justify it now. What had I done? Assisted the victim of the most horrible of all false imprisonments to escape; or cast loose on the wide world of London an unfortunate creature, whose actions it was my duty, and every man’s duty, mercifully to control?

Related Characters: Walter Hartright (speaker), Anne Catherick (“The Woman”)
Page Number: 31-32
Explanation and Analysis:
The First Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 8 Quotes

To associate that forlorn, friendless, lost woman, even by an accidental likeness only, with Miss Fairlie, seems like casting a shadow on the future of the bright creature who stands looking at us now.

Related Characters: Walter Hartright (speaker), Marian Halcombe (speaker), Laura Fairlie, Anne Catherick (“The Woman”)
Page Number: 62
Explanation and Analysis:
The First Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 10 Quotes

‘Crush it!’ she said. ‘Here, where you first saw her, crush it! Don’t shrink under it like a woman. Tear it out; trample it under foot like a man!’ The suppressed vehemence with which she spoke; the strength which her will concentrated in the look she fixed on me, and in the hold on my arm that she had not yet relinquished –communicated to mine, steadied me. We both waited for a minute, in silence. At the end of that time, I had justified her generous faith in my manhood; I had, outwardly at least, recovered my self-control.

Related Characters: Walter Hartright (speaker), Marian Halcombe (speaker), Laura Fairlie
Related Symbols: The Summer House
Page Number: 73
Explanation and Analysis:
The First Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 11 Quotes

I looked along the two rays of light; and I saw down into his inmost heart. It was black as night; and on it were written, in the red flaming letters which are the handwriting of the fallen angel: “Without pity and without remorse. He has strewn with misery the paths of others, and he will live to strew with misery the path of this woman by his side.” I read that; and then the rays of light shifted and pointed over his shoulder; and there, behind him, stood a fiend, laughing. And the rays of light shifted once more, and pointed over your shoulder; and there, behind you, stood an angel weeping.

Related Characters: Anne Catherick (“The Woman”) (speaker), Laura Fairlie, Sir Percival Glyde
Page Number: 80
Explanation and Analysis:
The First Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 13 Quotes

‘Try to compose yourself, or you will make me alter my opinion of you. Don’t let me think that the person who put you in the Asylum, might have had some excuse— ’ The next words died away on my lips. The instant I risked that chance reference to the person who had put her in the Asylum, she sprang up on her knees. A most extraordinary and startling change passed over her. Her face, at all ordinary times so touching to look at, in its nervous sensitiveness, weakness, and uncertainty, became suddenly darkened by an expression of maniacally intense hatred and fear […] ‘Talk of something else,’ she said, whispering through her teeth. ‘I shall lose myself if you talk of that.’

Related Characters: Walter Hartright (speaker), Anne Catherick (“The Woman”) (speaker), Sir Percival Glyde
Page Number: 104
Explanation and Analysis:
The First Epoch: Part 2, Chapter 1 Quotes

It is the great beauty of the Law that it can dispute any human statement, made under any circumstances, and reduced to any form. If I had felt professionally called upon to set up a case against Sir Percival Glyde, on the strength of his own explanation, I could have done so beyond all doubt. But my duty did not lie in this direction: my function was of the purely judicial kind. I was to weigh the explanation we had just heard; to allow all due force to the high reputation of the gentleman who offered it; and to decide honestly whether the probabilities, on Sir Percival’s own showing, were plainly with him, or plainly against him. My own conviction was that they were plainly with him; and I accordingly declared that his explanation was, to my mind, unquestionably a satisfactory one.

Related Characters: Mr. Gilmore (speaker), Laura Fairlie, Marian Halcombe, Sir Percival Glyde, Anne Catherick (“The Woman”)
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis:
The First Epoch: Part 3, Chapter 1 Quotes

I answered him – more because my tongue is a woman’s, and must answer, than because I had anything convincing to say. It was only too plain that the course Laura had adopted the day before, had offered him the advantage if he chose to take it – and that he had chosen to take it. I felt this at the time, and I feel it just as strongly now, while I write these lines, in my own room. The one hope left, is that his motives really spring, as he says they do, from the irresistible strength of his attachment to Laura.

Related Characters: Marian Halcombe (speaker), Laura Fairlie, Sir Percival Glyde
Page Number: 175
Explanation and Analysis:
The First Epoch: Part 3, Chapter 2 Quotes

1 hate Sir Percival! I flatly deny his good looks. I consider him to be eminently ill-tempered and disagreeable, and totally wanting in kindness and good feeling. Last night, the cards for the married couple were sent home. Laura opened the packet, and saw her future name in print, for the first time. Sir Percival looked over her shoulder familiarly at the new card which had already transformed Miss Fairlie into Lady Glyde – smiled with the most odious self-complacency – and whispered something in her ear. I don’t know what it was – Laura has refused to tell me – but I saw her face turn to such a deadly whiteness that I thought she would have fainted. He took no notice of the change: he seemed to be barbarously unconscious that he had said anything to pain her.

Related Characters: Marian Halcombe (speaker), Laura Fairlie, Sir Percival Glyde
Page Number: 191
Explanation and Analysis:
The Second Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 1 Quotes

This is the habitable part of the house, which has been repaired and redecorated, inside, on Laura’s account […] – all very nicely ornamented in the bright modern way, and all very elegantly furnished with the delightful modern luxuries. I was terribly afraid, from what I had heard of Blackwater Park, of fatiguing antique chairs, and dismal stained glass, and musty, frouzy hangings […] A large circular fish-pond, with stone sides, and an allegorical leaden monster in the middle, occupies the center of the square. The pond itself is full of gold and silver fish, and is encircled by a broad belt of the softest turf I ever walked on.

Related Characters: Marian Halcombe (speaker), Laura Fairlie
Related Symbols: The Fountain
Page Number: 203-204
Explanation and Analysis:
The Second Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 2 Quotes

Except in this one particular, she is always, morning, noon, and night, in-doors and out, fair weather or foul, as cold as a statue, and as impenetrable as the stone out of which it is cut. For the common purposes of society the extraordinary change thus produced in her, is, beyond all doubt, a change for the better, seeing that it has transformed her into a civil, silent, unobtrusive woman, who is never in the way. How far she is really reformed or deteriorated in her secret self, is another question. I have once or twice seen sudden changes of expression on her pinched lips, and heard sudden inflexions of tone in her calm voice, which have led me to suspect that her present state of suppression may have sealed up something dangerous in her nature, which used to evaporate harmlessly in the freedom of her former life.

Related Characters: Marian Halcombe (speaker), Madame Fosco
Related Symbols: The Fountain
Page Number: 216-217
Explanation and Analysis:

And the magician who has wrought this wonderful transformation – the foreign husband who has tamed this once wayward Englishwoman till her own relations hardly know her again – the Count himself? What of the Count? This, in two words: He looks like a man who could tame anything. If he had married a tigress, instead of a woman, he would have tamed the tigress. If he had married me, I should have made his cigarettes as his wife does – I should have held my tongue when he looked at me, as she holds hers.

Related Characters: Marian Halcombe (speaker), Count Fosco, Madame Fosco
Page Number: 203-204
Explanation and Analysis:
The Second Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 3 Quotes

‘I have always heard that truly wise men are truly good men, and have a horror of crime.’ ‘My dear lady,’ said the Count, ‘those are admirable sentiments; and I have seen them stated at the tops of copy-books.’ He lifted one of the white mice in the palm of his hand, and spoke to it in his whimsical way. ‘My pretty little smooth white rascal,’ he said, ‘here is a moral lesson for you. A truly wise Mouse is a truly good Mouse. Mention that, if you please, to your companions, and never gnaw at the bars of your cage again as long as you live.’

Related Characters: Laura Fairlie (speaker), Count Fosco (speaker)
Page Number: 231
Explanation and Analysis:

The hiding of a crime, or the detection of a crime, what is it? A trial of skill between the police on one side, and the individual on the other. When the criminal is a brutal, ignorant fool, the police, in nine cases out of ten, win. When the criminal is a resolute, educated, highly-intelligent man, the police, in nine cases out of ten, lose. If the police win, you generally hear all about it. If the police lose, you generally hear nothing. And on this tottering foundation you build up your comfortable moral maxim that Crime causes its own detection! Yes — all the crime you know of. And, what of the rest?’

Related Characters: Count Fosco (speaker), Laura Fairlie, Sir Percival Glyde
Page Number: 233
Explanation and Analysis:
The Second Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 4 Quotes

The Count’s firm hand slowly tightened its grasp on his shoulder, and the Count’s steady voice, quietly repeated, ‘Be good enough, if you please, to remember it, too.’ They both looked at each other: Sir Percival slowly drew his shoulder from under the Count’s hand; slowly turned his face away from the Count’s eyes; doggedly looked down for a little while at the parchment on the table; and then spoke, with the sullen submission of a tamed animal, rather than the becoming resignation of a convinced man.

Related Characters: Count Fosco (speaker), Laura Fairlie, Marian Halcombe, Sir Percival Glyde
Page Number: 246
Explanation and Analysis:
The Second Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 5 Quotes

“If I do build you a tomb,” he said, “it will be done with your own money. I wonder whether Cecilia Metella had a fortune, and paid for hers.” I made no reply — how could I, when I was crying behind my veil?

Related Characters: Laura Fairlie (speaker), Sir Percival Glyde (speaker)
Page Number: 358-359
Explanation and Analysis:
The Second Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 6 Quotes

He was kneeling by a tomb of white marble; and the shadow of a veiled woman rose out of the grave beneath, and waited by his side. The unearthly quiet of his face had changed to an unearthly sorrow. But the terrible certainty of his words remained the same. ‘Darker and darker,’ he said; ‘farther and farther yet. Death takes the good, the beautiful, and the young – and spares me. The Pestilence that wastes, the Arrow that strikes, the Sea that drowns, the Grave that closes over Love and Hope, are steps of my journey, and take me nearer and nearer to the End.’ My heart sank under a dread beyond words, under a grief beyond tears. The darkness closed round the pilgrim at the marble tomb; closed round the veiled woman from the grave.

Related Characters: Marian Halcombe (speaker), Walter Hartright, Laura Fairlie, Anne Catherick (“The Woman”)
Page Number: 274
Explanation and Analysis:
The Third Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 4 Quotes

‘There can be no doubt,’ I said, ‘that the facts, as you have stated them, appear to tell against us; but— ’ ‘But you think those facts can be explained away,’ interposed Mr. Kyrle. ‘Let me tell you the result of my experience on that point. When an English jury has to choose between a plain fact, on the surface, and a long explanation under the surface, it always takes the fact, in preference to the explanation.’

Related Characters: Walter Hartright (speaker), Mr. Kyrle (speaker), Laura Fairlie, Sir Percival Glyde, Count Fosco
Page Number: 442
Explanation and Analysis: