“This picture always haunted me”:
Dramatic Adaptations of The Woman in White
Keywords:
adaptation, Wilkie Collins, domestic violence, film, musical, sensation novels, Thatcherism, Victorian, The Woman in White, marriage lawAbstract
This essay investigates how, in the 150 years since the publication of Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White (1859-60), dramatic adaptations of this politically charged sensation novel have used it as a vehicle to comment on their own culture. Taking as a point of departure the focus on women’s changing legal status in Collins’ own stage adaptation of his novel, this essay uncovers shifts in the treatment of female voice and agency through three more recent dramatisations: BBC television versions from the 1980s and 1990s and an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical from 2004-05. These adaptations, when interpreted as products of their specific cultural and historical contexts, demonstrate changing perspectives on the Victorian past and, in their introduction of new forms of violence and trauma into the story, such as domestic rape and child murder, reveal how that past is mined to cathartic effect by contemporary adapters.
