Dual Gender of Marian Halcombe in The Woman in White

The Dual Gender of Marian Halcombe inThe Woman in White摘要威廉.威尔基.柯林斯作为英国维多利亚时代的著名小说家，在当时与他的好友查尔斯.狄更斯，威廉.萨克雷齐名。

柯林斯被认为是英国侦探小说的主要奠基人之一。

其作品中艺术成就最高，最著名的是《月亮宝石》和《白衣女人》。

《白衣女人》讲述了一个情节复杂，跌宕起伏的故事。

也是一个有关贪婪与邪恶，无辜与背叛，身份混淆和无情欺骗的故事。

玛丽安.哈尔库姆为了帮助被迫陷入婚姻困境且遭遇生命危险的同母异父的妹妹劳拉，同珀西瓦尔爵士，福斯科伯爵斗智斗勇，最终在家庭教室哈特沃特的帮助下拜托困境，三个人重获自由新生。

通过对玛丽安.哈尔库姆的双重性别的分析，讨论女性意识的觉醒，以及玛丽安这个角色对女性主义的发展和完善，对以后英国文学作品女性人物塑造的影响。

它包括三个部分，第一章：玛丽安双重性别的具体体现；第二章：从出生背景，社会的不公正以及玛丽安性格中的善良分析影响她形成这种性格的因素；第三章旨在讨论玛丽安具有的双重性别中体现出来的女性意识的觉醒，对女性主义的发展完善和对后来文学作品中女性角色的影响。

关键词：双重性别，女性意识觉醒，仁爱，勇敢。

AbstractWilliam Wilkie Collins is a famous novelist of Victorian England , he enjoyed a great reputation together with his friends Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray. William Collins is regarded as one of the founders of detective novels .Among his works, The Moonstone and The woman in White are of the highest artistic achievements and become the best-known ones.The Woman in White tells a complex , mysterious story . It is also a story of greed and evil, innocence and betrayal , confused identities and cruel deceptions . Marian Halcombe struggles with Sir Percival and Count Fosco in order to protect her half sister Laura, who was in trouble in marriage and faced the danger of losing life , finally under the help of the drawing teacher Hartright , all the three got rid of trouble and got a mew birth of freedom .This thesis will analyze Marian’s dual gender to explore the awakening of female consciousness and the impetus she made to the women characters in later literary works . It consists of three parts. Chapter one deals with the manifestation of Marian’s image . Chapter two analyzes the causes for Marian’s image, in which Marian’s personal background, the injustice of society, and the noble spirit in her are employed to serve as the main factors . Chapter three studies the female consciousness that can be seen through Marian’s image and the improvement to the development of feminism and the impetus she made to women characters in later literary works .Key Words : dual gender , female consciousness , humanity , bravery . IntroductionThe Woman in White is a detective novel written by William Wilkie Collins. Wiklie Collins was born in London in 1824, the eldest son of a successful painter, William Collins.He studied law and was admitted to the bar but never practiced his nominalprofession, devoting his time in writing instead. His meticulously plotted, often violent novels are now recognized as the direct ancestors of the modern mystery novel and thriller.The Woman in White is a story of greed and evil, innocence and betrayal, confused identities and cruel deceptions. The story is told by the main characters in succession, which set a new sample for English literature. It follows the story of two sisters living in Victorian England with their selfish, uninterested uncle as their guardian. Marian Halcombe is the elder of the two sisters, and a remarkably ugly woman, but with courage, strength and resourcefulness in abundance. The younger, Laura, her half sister, is fair and pretty, but weak and timid. In order to protect her, Marian has to deal with Sis Percival and Count Fosco, she behaves as a brave man, even a hero.BodyChapter I : The Manifestation of Marian’s Dual Gender.A,The femininity in MarianThe femininity in Marian is reflected by her words and her tenderness to Laura. When she has to informed Walter Hartright to leave, she becomes sad, at the same time, she must take care of weak Laura, so she holds her own pessimistic feelings back and forces herself smile to Laura and comfort her.She bears many things all herself , treats Laura like a mother to child. When Percival agreed Marian to live with Laura after their marriage as before, she becomes happy and begins to liking him, just like a little girl. As the day of their separation grows near , her increasing fear and sorrow faint her down. She keeps her dairy“It is the twenty-second. No more time for ura is dressed, and we leave for the church. By eleven o’clock they are married. By three o’clock they are gone. I am blind with crying and can write no more...”These words portrayed her sensitive thoughts and feelings as a woman.B,The masculinity in MarianMarian is the first ugly woman character in English literature if to say Jane Eyre is the first ordinary woman character. She impressed the readers deeply. “But when she turned and walked towards me, I saw to my surprise that her face was ugly.Hair grew on her upper lip, and her mouth was large and firm.It was almost a man’s face.”But her charm is not in appearance, but in her noble spirit, intelligent mind and brave behaviour.As a female, she has a thoughtful and quick mind as a man. She is always aware of the abnormal phenomena between Fosco and Sir Percival, and then analyses the situation very closely. She protects Laura with her life.When she detects the secret between Fosco and Sir Percival which might be detrimental to Laura, she decides to eavesdrop the conversation be tween them at the risk of her life. “Such secrecy! I decided I must listen to this conversation, in spite of the Count’s efforts to keep it private. The idea terrified me, but Laura’s happiness-perhaps her life-might depend on what I heard. How could I do it? I realized I could get out on to the flat veranda roof which ran past the bedrooms, about three feet below the windows. It was narrow, but there was room to move along it till I was above the library window. The Count andSir Percival usually sat near the open window, smoking , and if they did, I could be able to hear them from above.”After a while of inner struggle, she goes back to her room, put on a long dark cloak with a hood, and put out the candle. And then she climbs out of the window on to the veranda roof. After making a sustained effort, she heard the secret conversation and begins to make a plan dealing with them and protect Laura. What she said and what she did is far more than a woman’s reach. She has enough courage to face different kinds of challenge and spares no efforts to overwhelm the various difficulties. She just acts as a man, a strong, brave man. Chapter II, The causes for Marian’s dual genderA, Marian’s personal backgroundsMarian is Laura’s half- sister, her mother married twice. The first time to Mr Halcombe, her father, and the second time to Mr Fairlie, Laura’s father. Her father is poor while Laura’s father is rich, she has nothing , Laura has a fortune. She is dark and ugly while Laura is fair and pretty. More important, she is brave and strong , Laura is weak and timid. After the death of their parents, Marian accompanies Laura to live with Mr Fairlie, Laura’s uncle, a strange man suffers from some mysterious illness of the nerves. Marian grows up under such environment and it affected her character deeply. Living with no guardian and has a sense of responsibility to take care of her half sister, she must be brave, strong enough.B,Social injusticeAt that time, women is attached to her husband and her father. She has no independent status in society, she has no rights to choose, to inherit freely even has no freedom in marriage. Marian has to face the limit of a woman as well. When she prevents Laura from signing something unclearly, Percival’s words hurt her profoundly, he sneered at her and injured her pride which enraged her very much, but she can do nothing except bear it silently. Although during the rescue of Laura , she behaves as a man, she always doomed as a helper, a minor role, the society cannot permit her to be a heroine. In order to keep independent, Marian chooses to be single all her life, but that’s not enough. She has to be brave, strong and intelligent and she tries her best to pursue equality with men. If not, she attempts to be a man herself. C, Her resistance and her love for LauraLove for Laura and resistance to male chauvinism and resistance made Marianne formed an important factor. Laura is frail, needs her help and care; and Mr. Fairlie's coldness, indifference, Percival’s greed and deception, forced Marianne to fight against them in order to protect Laura.Laura’s tragic fate is the inevitable outcome of the patriarchal society, her obedience and flabbiness make her a “angle” in men’s eyes in the society which is dominated by male chauvinism .Laura accepts her father’s arrangement and endures her deceitful husband. She does not dare to react. Marian is opposite. Laura’s suffering urged her to fight against, even it is hard , she spares no effort to vindicate women’s equality .Chapter IV ConclusionMarian’s dual gender , especially her masculinity is a symbol of the awakening of female consciousness, her courage stimulates the development of thefeminist movement. And she also set an example for other women characters in English literature.。