Intro to Victorian Urban Horror

Further Notes on Woman in White

[SPOILER GUARANTEE]

In the previous part, I briefly described Sir Percival Glyde, the main villain in Wilkie Collins’ 1859 novel The Woman in White.

Here, I will indulge my scant readership with the names of the other characters.

At the end of part 1, I briefly mentioned the idea of Victorian Urban Horror. But what is it?

The short answer goes:

Slums!

Syphilis!

Social Decay!

The long answer goes:

Blake’s Satanic Mills belched biliously, blackening the sky.

Tears flowed as freely as coal along the canals.

Men lost their hearts of flesh, and gained hearts of wheels and cogs.

The non-melodramatic answer…

… can be found elsewhere, e.g. any social history book on the industrial revolution(s).  

As mentioned previously, I consider The Woman in White an example of subtle urban horror.

There are various factors behind this, some of which include:

1. Geographical mobility:

This greatly increased during the 19th century.

Although all of the on-page scenes take place in England, the main locations are London, Cumberland (on the Scottish border) and Hampshire (on the South Coast).  

In terms of plot significance and page count, no one location predominates over the other two.

In addition, Walter Hartright (the main protagonist) spends some time (off-page) in Honduras; while two critical characters are/were a member of an unnamed Italian nationalist movement.

(Italy became a single unified state in 1861, two years after this novel came out.)

This breaking down of geographical ties accompanied a breakdown in social ties.

2. Death

The Victorians were afraid of death, whether physical or social.

Another fear of theirs was being buried alive, or being thrown into an asylum.

Laura Fairlie, the unfortunate wife of Sir Percival, undergoes complete social death. After escaping from an asylum and returning to her family home, neither her uncle nor the manor staff recognise her. They believe she is dead, and buried in the grave bearing her name is the titular woman in white.

(The two are half-sisters through their father, and are spitting images of each other, in looks and mannerisms.)  

3. The Nouveaux Riches

By the 19th century, the traditional land-based aristocracy had been replaced by the new capitalist class in all but name.

The turning point of no return was the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846.

One feature of the old feudal aristocracy is that your typical lord has to maintain the agricultural productiveness of their land in order to maintain their influence.

In order to maintain food production, a Lord must maintain a minimum level of amicableness in his working relationships with his tenants.

This doesn’t prevent him from growing tyrannical. It simply puts a harsh brake on how quickly he can do so.

For an industrial manufacturing elite, this brake does not exist.

Thus, if he works his employees to death, there is no immediate change in food production.

I feel that this explains much of why Victorian morality still lingers in the collective imagination, and why we haven’t really escaped it yet, merely changed its surface appearance.

In the future I shall return to this theme.