Gender and Morality: An Analysis of Social Constraints and Personal Freedom in The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

Abstract

This thesis examines the complex relationship between gender, morality, and personal freedom in Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White within the socio-cultural context of Victorian England. Drawing primarily on Catherine Belsey’s poststructuralist approach to textual analysis, the study treats the novel not as a transparent reflection of reality but as an interrogative text that exposes ideological contradictions embedded in language, narrative form, and representation. Through close textual analysis of selected passages, the research explores how dominant Victorian ideologies—particularly patriarchy, gender norms, legality, sanity, and respectability—construct and regulate moral subjectivities, especially those of women. The thesis further incorporates utilitarian moral theory to evaluate the ethical decisions and behaviors of key characters, highlighting how utilitarian logic is selectively employed or distorted to justify oppression, control, and self-interest. Female characters such as Laura Fairlie, Marian Halcombe, and Anne Catherick are analyzed as sites where moral conflict and social constraint intersect, revealing the tension between imposed virtue and individual agency. Male authority figures, notably Sir Percival Glyde and Count Fosco, are examined as embodiments of patriarchal power and moral relativism. By foregrounding narrative multiplicity, silences, and contradictions, this study demonstrates how The Woman in White critiques Victorian moral absolutism while anticipating modern debates on gender, ethics, and freedom. Ultimately, the thesis argues that Collins’s novel remains a socially resonant text that challenges rigid moral frameworks and exposes the enduring legacy of gendered injustice.