Gender and Masculinities in The Woman in White- Quotation Bank
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Course
The Woman in White
Institution
AQA
Book
Woman in White
Please note: this quotation bank only covers the first half of the novella
Used for A Level English Literature Coursework- achieved 50/50 marks- A*
Quotations on Gender and Masculinities from the first half of The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, up until Scene Five of the Second Epoch, set out ...
This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what
a Man's resolution can achieve.
His exertions had made him highly successful in his profession; and his affectionate anxiety to
provide for the future of those who were dependent on his labours had impelled him, from the
time of his marriage, to devote to the insuring of his life a much larger portion of his income than
most men consider it necessary to set aside for that purpose. Thanks to his admirable prudence
and self-denial my mother and sister were left, after his death, as independent of the world as
they had been during his lifetime.
I had hardly rung the bell before the house door was opened violently; my worthy Italian friend,
Professor Pesca, appeared in the servant's place; and darted out joyously to receive me, with a
shrill foreign parody on an English cheer.
the smallest
human being I ever saw out of a show-room. Remarkable anywhere,
by his personal appearance, he was still further distinguished
among the rank and file of mankind by the harmless eccentricity of
his character.
The little man, in the innocence of his heart
When I dived for him, the poor little man was lying quietly coiled up at the bottom, in a hollow of
shingle, looking by many degrees smaller than I had ever seen him look before. Damsel in
distress, walter as hero, tropes of being saved and falling in love
He overwhelmed me with the
wildest expressions of affection--exclaimed passionately, in his
exaggerated Italian way, that he would hold his life henceforth at
my disposal--and declared that he should never be happy again
until he had found an opportunity of proving his gratitude by
rendering me some service which I might remember, on my side, to
the end of my days.
Pesca's overwhelming sense of obligation to me.
the opportunity of serving me
for which my grateful companion so ardently longed was soon to
come; that he was eagerly to seize it on the instant
possessed herself
of all my energies, who has become the one guiding influence that
now directs the purpose of my life.
Pesca was one of her especial favourites and his wildest eccentricities were always pardonable
in her eyes. Poor dear soul! from the first moment when she found out that the little Professor
was deeply and gratefully attached to her son, she opened her heart to him unreservedly, and
,took all his puzzling foreign peculiarities for granted, without so much as attempting to
understand any one of them.
Pesca's excellent qualities of heart
eccentric little foreigner
Pesca (who always said "good dears" when he meant "worthy friends")
the Professor's emotions in a flood of tears.
cried the enthusiastic little man at the top of his voice, "the overflowing happiness bursts out of
me at every pore of my skin, like a perspiration
when I heard the golden Papa say those words, if I had been big enough to reach
up to him, I should have put my arms round his neck, and pressed him to my bosom in a long
and grateful hug!
"I never doubted your true affection for Walter--but I am more than ever persuaded of it now!"
a triumphant flourish of the hand.
"Read!" said the little man majestically
Four guineas a week, and, more than that, the charming society of two young misses!
Commodities
"I shall dry my tears in your absence," said the Professor gaily,
Marry one of the two young Misses; become Honourable Hartright, M.P.; and when when you
are on the top of the ladder remember that Pesca, at the bottom, has done it all!" Bottom of
masculinity scale, subordinate, favour status, position and marriage over doing a job and getting
paid. Women objects at his disposal, for his use.
I had become completely absorbed in my own fanciful visions of Limmeridge House, of Mr.
Fairlie, and of the two ladies whose practice in the art of water- colour painting I was so soon to
superintend. Focus on women, can’t take his mind off them, sexually charged motives for the
job
wondering, I remember, what the Cumberland young ladies would look like
the figure of a solitary Woman, dressed from head to foot in white garments, her face bent in
grave inquiry on mine
a colourless, youthful face, meagre and sharp to look at about the cheeks and chin; large,
grave, wistfully attentive eyes; nervous, uncertain lips; and light hair of a pale, brownish-yellow
hue. There was nothing wild, nothing immodest in her manner: it was quiet and self-controlled, a
little melancholy and a little touched by suspicion; not exactly the manner of a lady, and, at the
same time, not the manner of a woman in the humblest rank of life. The voice, little as I had yet
heard of it, had something curiously still and mechanical in its tones, and the utterance was
remarkably rapid. She held a small bag in her hand: and her dress--bonnet, shawl, and gown all
of white--was, so far as I could guess, certainly not composed of very delicate or very expensive
materials. Her figure was slight, and rather above the average height--her gait and
actions free from the slightest approach to extravagance.
, hid there to see what sort of man you were, before I risked speaking. I doubted and feared
about it till you passed men as predatory, to be feared by women, risk
The first touch of womanly tenderness that I had heard from her trembled in her voice as she
said the words; but no tears glistened in those large, wistfully attentive eyes of hers, which
were still fixed on me.
What could I do? Here was a stranger utterly and helplessly at my mercy--and that stranger a
forlorn woman.
no earthly right existed on my part to give me a power of control over her, even if I had known
how to exercise it.
she came close to me and laid her hand, with a sudden gentle stealthiness, on my bosom--
a thin hand; a cold hand (when I removed it with mine) even on that sultry night. Remember that
I was young; remember that the hand which touched me was a woman's.
"I'm not fit now. I have been cruelly used and cruelly wronged
I tried again to lift the veil that hung between this woman and me.
I had assured myself that the man was sober as well as civil before I let her enter the vehicle.
Men as sexual predators
I was perplexed and distressed by an uneasy sense of having done wrong, which yet left
me confusedly ignorant of how I could have done right.
"The clothes we gave her were found on her bed. She must have gone away in the clothes she
wore when she came to us. In white, policeman. A woman in white." Men stripped her of her
innocence, which she has now reclaimed by putting the dress back on
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? Male duty to control women
Had she been traced and captured by the men in the chaise? Captured, predatory
"What shall I see in my dreams to-night?" I thought to myself, as I put out the candle; "the
woman in white? or the unknown inhabitants of this Cumberland mansion?" Sexual, choosing
between women to dream of
The instant my eyes rested on her, I was struck by the rare beauty of her form, and by the
unaffected grace of her attitude. Her figure was tall, yet not too tall; comely and well-developed,
yet not fat; her head set on her shoulders with an easy, pliant firmness; her waist, perfection in
the eyes of a man, for it occupied its natural place, it filled out its natural circle, it was visibly and
delightfully undeformed by stays. She had not heard my entrance into the room; and I allowed
myself the luxury of admiring her for a few moments, before I moved one of the chairs near me,
as the least embarrassing means of attracting her attention. She turned towards me
immediately. The easy elegance of every movement of her limbs and body as soon as she
began to advance from the far end of the room, set me in a flutter of expectation to see her face
clearly. She left the window--and I said to myself, The lady is dark. She moved forward a few
steps--and I said to myself, The lady is young. She approached nearer--and I said to myself
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