I Concurso de Escritura Crítica (2007-08)
Comentario crítico de la novela de Wilkie Collins The Woman in White
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Like the great Aristotle said, a story has to move passions to be a good one. It has to make the reader feel strong feelings the experience of which would be new and powerful. This was the secret of the succes of The Woman in White when it first was published, and still is.
The power of this novel to move feelings had an enthusiastic reception on the part of the public, but it was strongly repudiated from the critics, who considered this novel as a way to earn money, very far from literature's art. Anyway, in my opinion, both purposes do not exclude each other; in fact, they are essential elements to build a good work.
This gothic character of the novel which is shown from the famous begining on a dreadful night, is one of its innovating contributions to literature. The other one (and the most important one from my point of view) is the existence of several narrators. This fact gives the novel and its story the veracity of the testimony, but at the same time it involves the witness' credibility. The narrators are people who lived the story, but they are also characters and they could have their reasons to lie. So at the end this novel is the narrative of a series of events which could be false.
But I think the weakest point of The Woman in White are the characters. They are simple and plain and they have been poorly built up. Here the truthfulness of the novel is the victim. The story reminds us of the old tales where the knight errant saves the princess from the evil witch's hands. Our knight is Walter, always ready to put himself in risk for his lover. Our princess is charming Laura, who depends completely on her beloved knight. And here the witch is a man, a bad selfish (but complex) man. He is Fosco, whose personality is sublime (as he himself should say). He is the only character in the novel which is well sketched. He is not only a bad person, but also he loves his pets, and most important of all, he loves Marian. In this point the tale became truthful because the villain looses his inmense strenght on the hands of a woman. His necessity of money or his eagerness of power do not matter when love appears.
At this moment we see two different love stories which represent two different ways of writing a novel. The first love story is pure and sacred, between two innocent people, Walter and Laura. The second one involves an impossible relationship between the villain and the heroine, Marian; and it is because it is impossible that this love is truer, because Fosco can't avoid it.
Love is only one of the subjects this novel uses to educate the reader. Along the novel we learn that money does not bring happiness, that intelligent women will never marry and, of course, we learn that villains always loose and good people are happy at the end.
In conclusion, we must recognize the merits of The Woman in White. Its contribution to literature with the multi-narrator form is really important. But, on the other hand, the modern reader feels disappointed with its evident manicheism, which simplifies all the story to good and evil.
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