#woman in white weekly

[raethereptile]

Ok you lot

Edit: been told there was a version done last year, so if you guys keep voting yes I'll do a Christmas carol and other assorted Christmas stories by dickens, just to keep things different

Edit 2: December With Dickens Substack! See my new sideblog @december-with-dickens for the happenings, tag #december with dickens

[dodger-chan]

Fosco has made the story briefly interesting again. Excellent villainy. Plus this bit, after learning Walter has married Laura:

I could see that I sank in his estimation as a dangerous man from that moment. He shut up the drawer at once, folded his arms over his breast, and listened to me with a smile of satirical attention.

In Fosco's mind Laura is not, herself, worthy of any consideration. She is a tool for acquiring money. I think Fosco had assumed he was dealing with Marian's champion, or perhaps even Marian's proxy, and is disappointed. Walter seems less dangerous because now Fosco equates him with Glyde.

[dathen]

Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service.

I loved her.

Okay this hits though. Put it on one of those aesthetic moodboards for your local emotionally repressed pining blorbos.

[btrflyng]

I ran out of options so you have to choose one of those. 🤷 Sorry 😘

[thethirdromana]

I have a bunch of thoughts inspired by @animate-mush and @vickyvicarious' discussion on asylums and madness in the Woman in White and Dracula, but that discussion moved on before I had a chance to add to it, so this is going to have to be a separate post.

I'm thinking about this from the perspective of Bad People vs Bad Systems.

The Woman in White is a novel what goes wrong is the fault of bad systems. Laura lives in a system - a patriarchal society - that enables bad people to take advantage of her, and denies her the means of protecting herself.

But it seems to me that Wilkie Collins doesn't quite commit to the idea. The system fails when it's abused by bad people like Sir Percival Glyde and Count Fosco. But Collins only shows things going wrong as a result of bad people in a bad system. He doesn't show that same system leading good people to do bad things.

It's noticeable when we get the revelation about Anne Catherick's parentage. Until then, Sir Philip Fairlie is presented as a good man, and Laura's slavish adherence to his wishes could be a demonstration of how the patriarchy causes even good men to make women suffer. But the reveal that Sir Philip Fairlie is Anne Catherick's father upends that: he's just yet another morally flawed man in Laura's life. He doesn't harm Laura deliberately, but through Walter's narration Collins explicitly makes the connection between Sir Philip Fairlie's sins and everything that Laura suffers.

Contrast him with Walter, our morally pure hero. Walter often doesn't seem to treat Laura much better, but Collins clearly doesn't see it that way. For instance, it's striking to me how much Walter's treatment of Laura echoes her treatment in the asylum: she's confined to one location, lied to, and infantilised. Except when Walter does it, he's a good person, and it's presented as a good thing - even as romantic.

Wilkie Collins is more interested in talking about social issues than Bram Stoker is, but Stoker is more willing to take that further step and accept that bad systems also cause good people to do bad things. Jack Seward is a good person: he wants the best for his patients, he means well, but he also uses his power as an asylum-owner to abuse Renfield. The heroes exclude Mina from their discussions with the best of intentions, but it still ends badly for them. Collins never pursues this kind of storyline with Walter - or at least he hasn't yet, and I don't think it's coming.

Overall, harm in Dracula can happen regardless of intention. Harm in The Woman in White requires intention or at least indifference. I wonder how much of this is inherent to Collins' worldview, and how much is that the idea that patriarchal norms are bad even in the hands of good men would just have been a step too far for Collins' 1860s readership.

[gilgamushroom]

A bit obsessed with Pesca tbh. He’s Italian. He’s an 18th-century teaboo. Mothers love him. He wears a white hat. He’s tiny. He chose one guy to latch on to after he saved his life and reminds him of this at every possible instance. He dreams of being an MP one day. He jumps on furniture. He tried every British sport with 0 previous experience or preparation. Including swimming. He’s a silly little jokester. He broke a teacup and didn’t even notice. Students love him. He’s probably one of those professors that does all the voices and stands in a chair while teaching Dante’s Inferno. He left Italy “for political reasons”. This is never once again elaborated upon. His name means peach.

[pop-goes-the-weasel]

Me at 17: Oh no, Walter can no longer be near Laura

Me at 24: Oh no, Walter no longer has a job

[thesporkidentity]

"It is truly wonderful," he said, "how easily Society can console itself for the worst of its shortcomings with a little bit of clap-trap. The machinery it has set up for the detection of crime is miserably ineffective—and yet only invent a moral epigram, saying that it works well, and you blind everybody to its blunders from that moment." ... "Yes! I agree with her. John Bull does abhor the crimes of John Chinaman. He is the quickest old gentleman at finding out faults that are his neighbours', and the slowest old gentleman at finding out the faults that are his own, who exists on the face of creation. Is he so very much better in this way than the people whom he condemns in their way? English Society, Miss Halcombe, is as often the accomplice as it is the enemy of crime."

[vickyvicarious]

So... I'm thinking Marian is being drugged, yeah?

Her doctor insisted she was getting better and would be fine. Then Fosco got a nurse working for him to take charge of much of her care. After a couple of days in which trust in her abilities could grow, Marian suddenly gets worse. Fosco claims the fever has turned into typhus. To quote the footnote in my book: "If Marian does indeed have Typhus, she did not get it from being soaked in the rain. The disease is spread through the bites of insects — mites, chiggers, lice, fleas." She admittedly does show seem to show symptoms that match and I don't know if Collins would have known how typhus is spread.

Then the new physician arrives and backs up the Count's assessment. After some time of anxiety, it's pronounced that she will be okay after all, but needs a lot of rest and recovery time. Then Fosco and the original doctor argue about her diet during her recovery. The typhus mistake is leveraged against him and Fosco abruptly abandons all restraint to argue with him more openly now, until he ends up just leaving. Marian has no doctor, only Fosco's nurse.

Not only is this very dramatic and taking a toll on Laura's emotional and physical wellbeing too (with added stuff like letting her in to see Marian in the worst condition, and the doctor's absence in the end being hidden from her)... but it all seems suspiciously designed/timed to discredit and drive away the doctor. The Foscos have already established a willingness to drug people, after all, with Laura's maid...

[december-with-dickens]

Rae the Reptile is proud to present:

December with Dickens!

Not to be confused with Dickens December

Welcome!

Where we will read Charles Dickens' assorted Christmas Stories this holiday season!

A Christmas Carol, A Christmas Tree, and many more!

Substack link coming soon!

Reading list coming soon!

[excentricat1]

Given how little time Percival Glyde spent in England growing up, how likely is it that his secret is that he isn’t the real Percival?

[winterinhimring]

Someone PLEASE punch Count Fosco.

[dodger-chan]

"I am so useless—I am such a burden on both of you," she answered, with a weary, hopeless sigh. "You work and get money, Walter, and Marian helps you. Why is there nothing I can do? You will end in liking Marian better than you like me—you will, because I am so helpless! Oh, don't, don't, don't treat me like a child!"

Having had some health problems, and being the "unemployed" spouse, I really feel for Laura here. She isn't fully well, and there's probably not much materially that she can contribute, but I'm sure they can come up with something she can do. Maybe even add to her responsibilities as she gets stronger.

Her drawings, as she finished them, or tried to finish them, were placed in my hands. Marian took them from me and hid them carefully, and I set aside a little weekly tribute from my earnings, to be offered to her as the price paid by strangers for the poor, faint, valueless sketches, of which I was the only purchaser. It was hard sometimes to maintain our innocent deception, when she proudly brought out her purse to contribute her share towards the expenses, and wondered with serious interest, whether I or she had earned the most that week. I have all those hidden drawings in my possession still—they are my treasures beyond price—the dear remembrances that I love to keep alive—the friends in past adversity that my heart will never part from, my tenderness never forget.

Fuck you Walter. You are doing literally the one thing she asked you not to do. Fuck you, and fuck Marian for letting you. Teach Laura to sweep the floor in your little apartment, it would be better than this.

[dathen]

Mr. Gilmore 🤝 Gabriel Utterson 🤝 Mrs. Westenra’s solicitors

What The Actual Fuck Is This Will You’re Making Me Keep

[thewinegrannie]

Something I am really enjoying about Woman in White Weekly is that I have no frame of reference for it at all. Okay, Dracula the novel has had its share of surprises, but we know the basic premise, big evil vampire etc etc

Meanwhile, no clue how long Woman in White is, and just about have a vague idea of the main topics

[thethirdromana]

Favourite Woman in White villain?

Oof, it has to be Sir Philip Fairlie, deceased embodiment of the patriarchy, right? Sir Percival was suitably hateable for a while, but it feels like he turned out to be too much of a loser in the end. And there's too much weird stuff going on with Fosco, from the fatphobia to the effeminacy to whatever it is that Collins has with foreigners.

But Sir Philip Fairlie is the villain who manages to be villainous from beyond the grave. Without him, there wouldn't be a story: if he'd encouraged his daughter to marry her own choice of husband, she would never have chosen Sir Percival Glyde; if he hadn't cheated on his (lovely) wife, the Laura/Anne switcheroo could never have taken place. I think he's done fucking up Laura's life now, but I wouldn't be surprised if something else sneaks out in the final chapters.

There's just something impressive about someone who is so awful in a novel that he's not even alive in.