The Woman in Black

“I saw to the fire, damping down the flames, and knocked out my pipe on the side of the hearth, feeling quiet and serene again, and no longer agitated about what lonely terrors I might have to endure, whether asleep or awake, during the small hours of the coming night.”

Now that Kipps has decided to write his story, his tone begins to lessen in hostility and moves toward a resigned acceptance. However, there is hope that Kipps will let go of his pain with the goal of moving forward with his life without fear of reliving his memories. At this point in the novel, the reader does not know about his loss or his encounter with the woman in black, but Hill makes it obvious that Kipps is impacted from being haunted by his past.

“Sounds were deadened, shapes blurred. It was a fog that had come three days before, and did not seem inclined to go away [...] it was menacing and sinister, disguising familiar the world and confusing the people in it.”

While still in London, Kipps comments on the horrific, unsettling fog that covers the landscape (See: Symbols & Motifs). This moment foreshadows the eventual horror Kipps will endure. Here, the use of fog also represents Kipps’s distaste for life in London that he will trade in for living in Monk’s Piece.

“I tried not to sound concerned, but was feeling an unpleasant sensation of being isolated far from any human dwelling, and trapped in this cold tomb of a railway carriage, with its pitted mirror and stained, dark-wood paneling.”

Kipps’s journey to Crythin Gifford appears anything but comfortable the closer he gets to his destination, which continues to foreshadow the uncomfortable and mysterious haunting he will soon experience. Hill also uses small moments like this to introduce gothic elements (See: Background), such as isolation and fear. Kipps fears the unknown as well as the lack of comfort, which only intensifies the closer he gets to Crythin Gifford.

“For I see that then I was still all in a state of innocence, but that innocence, once lost, is forever.”

In his reflection, Kipps focuses on the younger version of himself that went to Mrs. Drablow’s estate. His state of innocence serves to illustrate a coming-of-age or a pivotal moment in his character development. By providing space for Kipps to share his reflection of his experience as he retells his story, Hill uses his perspective of both the past and the present to illustrate his character development through a first-person narration.

“[S]he was suffering from some terrible wasting disease, for not only was she extremely pale, even more than a contrast with the blackness of her garments could account for, but the skin, and it seemed, only the thinnest layer of flesh was tautly stretched and strained across her bones.”

The details about the woman in black’s appearance are grotesque and death-like, characterizing her as existing in a space between life and death and embodying The Impact of Loss and Mourning. The introduction of the woman in black also starts the haunting Kipps will endure throughout his time in Crythin Gifford. Hill adheres to traditional gothic tropes to create an eerie tone.

“My head reeled at the sheer and startling beauty, the wide, bare openness of it. The sea of space, the vastness of the sky above and on either side made my heart race.”

On his way to Eel Marsh House for the first time, Kipps is in awe of the natural landscape surrounding the island. Riding down the Nine Lives Causeway, the lack of fog creates an image of a wide-open space, symbolic of potential. However, the road to Eel Marsh House does not appear to look as open or full of potential at any other point in the novel. Kipps takes in the scene before him with an appreciation for the natural world, which contrasts greatly with his life in London.

“I did not believe in ghosts. Or rather, until this day, I had not done so, and whatever stories I had heard of them I had, like most rational, sensible young men, dismissed as nothing more than stories indeed.”

 Part of Kipps’s character development consists of the dismantling of his own perceptions of the world, and his experience with the woman in black illustrates the beginning of this. Although he attempts to reconcile with a logical explanation for her presence, Hill illustrates that he must also overcome his contempt for beliefs that do not align with his own, reflecting The Clash Between Rationality and Superstition.

“I had never been so quite alone, nor felt quite so small and insignificant in a vast landscape before, and I fell into a not pleasant brooding, philosophical frame of mind, struck by the absolute indifference of water and sky to my presence.”

Hill uses the natural landscape to mirror the emotional conflicts of the characters, a literary device known as pathetic fallacy. For Kipps, he feels as though he has entered a world of the unknown, which he seemingly has, and the natural world around him provides an outlet to characterize his feelings. Despite being in a vast environment, he still feels confined to his isolation, and becomes even more full of foreboding.

“‘I wouldn’t have left you over night,’ he said at last, ‘wouldn’t have done that to you.’”

Although Mr. Keckwick does not have much dialogue or warm interactions with Kipps, this moment signifies a solidarity between the two men. Kipps has not made much headway in gathering information regarding Eel Marsh House and the woman in black, so Mr. Keckwick’s statement validates Kipps’s experience. It also creates a connection between the two, which starts to allow Kipps to leave the isolation of the estate.

“I felt as if I had journeyed so far, in spirit if not in time, experienced so much and been so churned about within my formerly placid and settled self that it might have been years since then.”

Throughout the novel, Hill utilizes language, such as the word “spirit,” to intertwine the supernatural with characters like Kipps. The word “spirit” can be used to refer to the internal self or a ghost, so using this word enforces the gothic tone of the novel. In this moment, Kipps, both in the past and the present, recognizes that his time in Crythin Gifford has and will change him.

“I was trying to make light of something that we both knew was gravely dangerous, trying to dismiss as insignificant and perhaps even nonexistent.”

While talking to Mr. Jerome, Kipps attempts to avoid the reality of his situation at Eel Marsh House because he has yet to fully accept the woman in black’s haunting. These moments of Kipps’s reflections, whether on the haunting or his internal conflict, are formed in streams of consciousness as he writes out his thoughts as they come. By doing so, Hill creates a raw and natural flow in his perspective as it shifts between the past and the present.

“He lived in an imposing, rather austere country park, which reminded me of something that a character in the novels of Jane Austen might have inhabited.”

At different points in the novel, Hill points to other writers, such as Jane Austen and Sir Walter Scott, which helps to situate the time period of her own story. Not only does it help provide an implied time to the text, but it also illustrates where Hill pulled in influences for her novel. Although Jane Austen was not an author of gothic literature, her novels were introduced right around the rise of gothic literature.

“My spirits rose. In a strange way, I was looking forward to the morrow.”

Although Kipps has been fearful of Eel Marsh House and the woman in black, his day spent exploring the town fulfills him and provides space away from the haunting. Kipps feels refreshed and eager to return to the estate with hopes he can gain a better understanding of the woman in black, which emphasizes his naivety and the continuance of The Clash Between Rationality and Superstition.

“The sun was high in the sky, the water glittering, everywhere was light, light and space and brightness, the very air seemed somehow purified and more exhilarating. Sea birds soared and swooped, silver-ray and white, and ahead, at the end of the long straight path, Eel Marsh House beckoned to me.”

Still feeling eager to go back to Eel Marsh House, Hill depicts a supernatural-like allure to the estate. Kipps, who views his task as a challenge to be conquered, can see Eel Marsh House clearly without being engulfed in darkness. By doing so, Hill plays with lightness and darkness to reflect the moods of the characters. This moment also indicates just how much Kipps cannot simply leave the haunting behind either.

“I have recounted the events […] And that the odd events which had so frightened and unnerved me were all but forgotten. If I thought of them at all, it was mentally, as it were to shrug my shoulders.”

Here, Kipps tries to rationalize with himself that the fear he felt with the woman in black is over, and that it did not affect him as negatively as he thought. His need to discover a logical explanation for the haunting overpowers what he actually experiences and feels, reflecting The Clash Between Rationality and Superstition. This moment also comes before his encounter with the nursery room, which positions Kipps in a vulnerable position since he believes he is now safe from the haunting.

“It was a sound of something bumping gently on the floor, in a rhythmic sort of way, a familiar sort of sound and yet one I still could not exactly place, a sound that seemed to belong to my past, to waken old, half-forgotten memories.”

The sound of the rocking chair, which is a seemingly innocent piece of furniture, is both comforting and eerie for Kipps. Hill utilizes sound as well as the physical presence of the woman in black to induce fear, playing with Kipps’s sensory associations that “waken old, half-forgotten memories” and creating narrative tension. By using a rocking chair in the haunting, Hill also focuses on familiar sounds and objects from childhood, foreshadowing the reveal about child loss that occurs later in the novel.

“As it was, I could do nothing, but stand, stand as still and stiff as a post, rigid with fear and yet inwardly in a turmoil of nervous apprehension and imaginings and responses.”

Here, Kipps is frozen with fear at the sound of the pony and trap (See: Symbols & Motifs). Already shaken up by the noises coming from the nursery, Kipps leaves his calmed, eager state from earlier that day and now enters a state of despair. As Jennet is in the nursery grieving for her son, Kipps feels her turmoil from outside the house, which illustrates the cyclical nature of trauma and isolation on the island and reflects The Impact of Loss and Mourning.

“The house felt like a ship at sea, battered by the gale that came roaring across the open marsh.”

Hill foreshadows the traumatic incident with Spider and Kipps in the marsh with the harsh winds outside the house. Kipps once saw the marsh as an open, vast landscape of beauty, but now the marsh represents the overwhelming amount of grief that exists at Eel Marsh House.

“For a moment I actually began to conjecture that there was indeed someone—another human being—living here in this house, a person who hid themselves away in that mysterious nursery and came out at night to fetch food and drink and to take the air.”

In an attempt to rationalize his experience, Kipps struggles to accept that the woman in black is a ghost, invoking The Clash Between Rationality and Superstition. It becomes easier for him to believe someone else secretly lives inside Eel Marsh House, rather than it being haunted. Hill utilizes this moment to illustrate how the isolation at the estate along with the haunting causes Kipps to question himself and how he perceives the world around him.

“I had never experienced the death of anyone close to me, never truly mourned and suffered the extremes of grief. Never yet.”

The novel employs a lot of foreshadowing, and Kipps briefly alludes to the eventual death of his wife and son in this moment. Due to it being a momentous loss for Kipps, he does not mention it often in the novel. However, as Kipps reflects on the impact of grief that Jennet feels for her son, he realizes that he had not yet experienced this magnitude of loss at the time of these events, but his comment implies that, by the end of his narrative, this will change.

“There was a bright light and I was staring into it—or, rather, I felt it was boring into me.”

After Kipps rescues Spider from the marsh, he wakes up to an image that mirrors a stereotypical depiction of passing from life to death, featuring a “bright light.” Hill begins this chapter with this image to create suspense over Kipps’s situation. At the same time, the use of light contrasts with the darkness that covered the marsh in the last chapter.

“Whoever she was, this was the focus of her search or her attention or her grief—I could not tell which. This was the very heart of the haunting.”

Before Kipps leaves Eel Marsh House, he goes into the nursery one final time, and, as he discovers it has been destroyed, he realizes that the loss of a child led to the haunting of the woman in black. Although he has yet to learn the full story of Mrs. Drablow and Jennet Humfrye, the portrayal of the nursery induces sadness and sympathy in Kipps, reflecting The Impact of Loss and Mourning.

“No. Mad with grief and mad with anger and a desire for revenge. She blamed her sister who had let them go out that day, though it was no one’s fault, the mist comes without warning.”

When Mr. Daily reveals the truth behind Mrs. Drablow and Jennet Humfrye, Hill sums up the woman in black’s haunting in one statement. Although the reason for her anger and grief is simple and seemingly justifiable for Jennet, the novel’s depiction of the haunting remains complex and suspenseful. Hill uses the image of the mist to depict how it blurs the line between reality and illusion, especially for Jennet, who was already grieving losing her son to an adoption before suffering a more permanent loss of him.