A Study of the ideas of women as revealed through the main female characters in Wilkie Collins' the woman in white

In Wilkie Collins' mystery novel, The Woman in White, he depicts the nineteenth century's realities which place and treat women unfairly. The two main female characters in the story, Laura Fairlie and Marian Halcombe, abide in this unfavorable era as two different Victorian women. Laura is the ideal Victorian woman who has feminine qualities. She is unjustly and cruelly treated by the male characters but she is incapable to fight or to defend herself. Meanwhile, Marian, with her strong qualities is there to always provide Laura with help and protection for she believes in the equality of rights between men and women. Through the use of a related theory of femininity and feminism in the nineteenth century as well as theories of characterization and conflict, the writer would reveal their different character traits and different ways in dealing with the problems in Victorian society to find the idea of femininity in Laura and the idea of feminism in Marian.