The Woman in Black

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1983

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapters 10-12

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Chapters 10-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 10 Summary: “Whistle and I’ll Come to You”

In the early hours of the morning, a strong wind wakes up Kipps, and just as he falls back asleep, he hears the sound of the child crying in the marsh. He struggles to ignore it, and, on his way downstairs, he feels as though someone has passed him in the hall. He starts to believe that there must be another person living in the house, but he soon convinces himself that cannot be true either. He begins to reflect on the perception of what is or is not real. After realizing he left his candle in the nursery, he convinces himself to go back for it, so he can read before the sun rises.

Later on, he takes Spider outside, and Spider soon runs off after hearing a whistle come from the marsh. Kipps follows Spider and almost gets stuck in the marsh from trying to free Spider from drowning. Once the pair have escaped the mud, Kipps looks up at Eel Marsh House to see the woman in black staring at him from the nursery. He lies down in front of the house and collapses as he hears the sound of a horse-drawn cart coming toward him.

Chapter 11 Summary: “A Packet of Letters”

Waking up, Kipps sees Mr. Daily peering over him, and he confesses to Kipps that he was worried about him and made the trip to check on his well-being. Kipps, who is grateful for his arrival, rests before they make the trip back to the village.

Before leaving, he goes into the nursery one more time and notices the “door was ajar” (140). He walks to the window and realizes that the windows are bolted with bars across them, meaning no one could have entered from the outside. Once he packs his belongings and Mrs. Drablow’s letter, Kipps and Mr. Daily ride down the causeway. He looks at the house and does not see the woman in black in the window, so he turns around to keep his eyes off the house.

At Mr. Daily’s house, Kipps settles in and writes letters to Mr. Bentley and Stella to inform them that he will be coming home due to his experience in Crythin Gifford. He reflects on his anger for the woman in black for being a “disturbed creature” and at the people in the town for having been right about Eel Marsh House.

After lunch, Kipps finishes reading the letters, discovering that Jennet was not only Nathaniel’s mother, but also Mrs. Drablow’s sister. He also learns that Nathaniel died at the age of six along with his nurse. Jennet died as well due to “heart failure” 12 years after her son’s death.

Kipps decides to go on a walk with Spider and reflects on what he has just learned. He realizes that Nathaniel and his nurse died in an accident on a horse-drawn cart on the causeway. Jennet died slowly, and, due to her grief, she haunted Nathaniel’s nursery. After dinner, he questions if Mr. Daily knows more about Jennet and Mrs. Drablow; Mr. Daily reveals that Jennet was overcome with grief over Nathaniel’s adoption. After eventually being allowed to visit her son, Jennet planned to take him away with the help of Mr. Keckwick’s father, who was the family’s driver. However, he accidentally steered them into the marsh, causing Nathaniel and the nurse to drown. Now, whenever anyone sees the woman in black, a child from Crythin Gifford suddenly dies in an accident.

Kipps asks if a child has died, and Mr. Daily says no. Kipps decides to leave the next day, but he wakes up with a fever and spends the next couple weeks recovering. He wakes up after 12 days to see Stella has come to visit him.

Chapter 12 Summary: “The Woman in Black”

Kipps and Stella return to London, and he is able to put his experience with the woman in black behind him. Although Kipps is sad to leave Mr. Daily and his wife, he is happy to be leaving the village with Stella. He thinks one last time about Jennet and hopes the curse has been broken, since a child has not passed away. Kipps tells the reader that he marries Stella six weeks later, and they have a son, Joseph.

When Joseph is a year old, they took him to a fair in town. They enjoy the attractions, and Stella wants to take a ride on a horse-drawn cart with Joseph. Kipps watches as Stella and Joseph ride in a pony trap. As he looks at the people around him, he recognizes the face of the woman in black; she is looking at him, while standing slightly behind a tree. He attempts to find his family as quickly as possible, and he feels relieved once he sees them appear around a corner. He starts to run after them, but Jennet steps into the path of the horse. The horse is scared and “swerve[s] violently,” causing the cart to run into a tree. Their son dies instantly, but Stella passes away due to her injuries almost a year later.

Chapters 10-12 Analysis

Although Kipps has already experienced a horrifying night, the appearance of thick fog and heavy winds foreshadow more traumatic events to come (See: Symbols & Motifs). The events of the previous night also serve to further dismantle Kipps’s perception of “what was ‘real’” (127). His perception of reality, going back to the theme of The Clash Between Rationality and Superstition, begins to evolve surrounding the ghost of the woman in black. Specifically, the encounter in the nursery room, which Kipps must face to get his candle, illustrates “the feelings that must accompany the death of someone,” such as desperate anguish and despair (130). Kipps experiences the same, strong emotions in the nursery as he does with the woman in black. He acknowledges that, despite the intense fear he has for Eel Marsh House and the woman, there must have been a tragic loss felt by the Drablow family, hinting at The Impact of Loss and Mourning.

When Spider and Kipps almost drown in the marsh, Kipps experiences the woman in black’s malevolence. Although he has not finished the letters, he starts to put the pieces together that the sounds of the pony trap crashing are interlinked with the woman in black’s past. These events have caused Kipps to “lose control” of his “senses,” which creates not only tension between Kipps and Eel Marsh House but also with himself (137). He feels defeated by the woman in black and guilty for not having completed his assignment. However, he also acknowledges that the spirit of the estate and the woman in black will continue to affect him, so his decision to leave is an act of self-preservation.

By continuing to read the letters, Hill demonstrates Kipps’s need to understand the mystery of the woman in black and positions Kipps to learn why the villagers fear Eel Marsh House. The letters help unravel the past of Mrs. Drablow and the woman in black to build suspense throughout the haunting, while also revealing this information to the reader at the same time Kipps experiences it for the first time. When Kipps learns that Jennet Humfrye lost her son to an adoption and then had to endure his death, he recognizes that her pain in the afterlife is a culmination of anger that “gave despairingly” to bitterness. Rather than continuing to feel anger and fear toward her, his emotions “filled [him] with sadness and sympathy” (145). The letters, when read in their entirety, illustrate the theme of The Impact of Loss and Mourning, and Kipps feels this impact through the haunting itself.

Although Kipps starts to develop empathy for the women in black, Mr. Daily’s revelation that the sighting of the woman coincides with the tragic, unexpected death of a child in Crythin Gifford forces him to stay within an unsettled state of mind. The woman in black has proved that she does not stay confined to Eel Marsh House; rather, she follows Kipps to other places, such as the inn and, even, his dreams. Up until this point in the novel, Hill subtly illustrates the woman in black’s ability to follow Kipps, so his thought that her “desire for revenge” must be over due to Mrs. Drablow’s death (159) gives him a false sense of security.

By believing he has left the woman in black behind, Kipps returns to London without fear of the future. However, despite his seeming ability to free himself from the past, the woman in black enacts her revenge by causing a fatal crash that leaves Kipps widowed and without his son. As he recounts this last experience with the woman in black, Kipps closes his account with one final tragedy, revealing his own tragic secret.