COLLINS, Wilkie, The Woman in White, Penguin Readers, C1

Toni Munar Frau. 2º Bachillerato EFL

The Woman in White is a mystery novel. It’s about a woman, Laura, who falls in love with her new teacher, but she has to marry Sir Percival, a wicked man interested in her money. The teacher goes to America to forget Laura. One day, a woman dressed up in white clothes appears and warns Laura not to marry Sir Percival. But in the end, they marry, and all Sir Percival wants is Laura to sign an arrangement to give him all her money if she dies; he wants the money because he has a secret. The woman in white knew the secret, so Sir Percival put her in an asylum some years before pretending she was mad, but she escaped. When the teacher gets back from America, he starts investigating Sir Percival’s secret by meeting the woman in white and her mother. What he finds out is…

The story takes place in the 1850’s. Then, the men were “more important than women”. Laura falls in love with Mr. Hartright, her teacher, and he loves her too. However, she promised her father she was going to marry Sir Percival, who seemed a good man and was a baronet. So, although she didn’t like Sir Percival and she felt something strange in him, she decided to marry him. This situation was really common in those times: women had to marry men who their parents chose and the weddings were arrangements between families to elevate their social status. Laura is living a life she doesn’t want, but she prefers it rather than opposing to her father’s decision.