The Woman in White: Week Three

[Marie]

After six months, Sir Percival and Lady Glyde return to his house, Blackwater Park in Hampshire, accompanied by Glyde's friends, Count Fosco and his wife, whom is Laura's aunt. Marian comes to stay with Laura at Blackwater and learns that Glyde is in financial difficulties. Glyde attempts to bully Laura into signing a document that would allow him to use her marriage settlement of £20,000, which Laura refuses. Anne discovers she is dying, and travels to Blackwater Park and contacts Laura, saying that she holds a secret that will ruin Glyde's plans. Glyde discovers their communication and becomes extremely paranoid, believing Laura knows his secret and attempts to keep her held at Blackwater. Fosco conspires to use the resemblance between Laura and Anne to exchange their two identities. The two will trick both individuals into traveling with them to London where Laura will be placed in an asylum under the identity of Anne, and Anne will be buried under the identity of Laura. Marian overhears part of this plan but becomes soaked by rain, and contracts typhus.

[Piyumi]

Oh this was the part I actually got 'scared' of.....uughh just reading the above made my chest tight.
This is where the suspense builds and the story takes on a dark turn.
Collins set the ghostly mood earlier on and then smoothly moved on to the real 'horror' of the story I think.

Poor Marian, struggling to convince everyone around that what is about to happen is so wrong and no one willing to listen.
As a reader this was hard since we as readers KNOW who is behind all this and are helpless in aiding Marian.
I really felt for her here, she was trying pretty hard to get the upper hand but things just didn't go her way.

Also, its here that her character shines, pitted against the likes of Fosco, and I like how Collins gave them enough dialogues to show how a female can hold her own against a devious enemy.
I liked that very much!

[Piyangie]

I had a hard time stomaching these chapters. The villainous conduct of Sir Percival and Fosco is absolutely shocking. And Marian's helplessness against such adversary was heart breaking. But I admired the woman's courage against such a sinister man as Count Fosco.

And as Piyumi has pointed out, Collins choice of a strong heroine to stand up against one of the classics most vile characters (Count Fosco) is remarkable. Marian Halcombe is in my opinion the best heroine I have come across in a classic thus far (perhaps equally with Rosa Gryphus in The Black Tulip).

[Linda Abhors the New GR Design]

I haven't reached this point yet, but the summary above reminded me of a Garcia Marquez short story, "I Just Came to Use the Phone"....there were a couple of stories in that book that creeped me out, and that was one of them. Lacking the devious villain. Will be hard for me to keep going, as I've enough of devious villains who like to pick on women at work.

[Linda Abhors the New GR Design]

Okay, I was kind of cheering Marian on, as she crawled out onto the rainy roof, sneaking under windows, spying on the two. Brava! However, suspension of disbelief is required for the end of that chapter, imho, because who would really find her diary, and not only not destroy it, but basically write down "Yes, I'm the one she's talking about, and she's totally right." !?!?!

[Piyumi]

Linda Abhors the New GR Design wrote: "Okay, I was kind of cheering Marian on, as she crawled out onto the rainy roof, sneaking under windows, spying on the two. Brava! However, suspension of disbelief is required for the end of that ch..."

Ha :D true