In the Victorian era, Wilkie Collins composed a famous novel to transform the ideas of family, law and brotherly affection. Leila Silvana May, of North Carolina State University, criticizes Collins' book The Woman in White in her newspaper article “Sensational Sisters: Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White.” According to her, Collins structures her main theme around the elegant English ménage, “the sororal relationship as exemplary for the creation of her narrative, and. . . it allows its Victorian readers edification, titillation and horror at the same time, out of love between brothers. . . justifies the family organization on which society is based, while its potential anarchic and erotic intensity risks undermining the very edifice that contains it” (May 82-83). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay To give context to his argument, May bases much of his evidence on the culture of historic 19th-century Victorianism. Before he begins to dive into Collins' novel, May outlines significant aspects of the time period. First, May argues that Victorian culture was fixated on the foundation of class society and, in particular, family formations. The family is organized around high morality and class society. The family becomes stronger through sacrificial service and loving-kindness to one another. All parts contribute to the whole society by being a united family. In the Victorian era, the sororal (sister) bond is “the purest, most pristine, and 'natural' component of the family” (May 82). In other words, the sister bond is the most powerful part of the family. “The Woman in White, then, is a treatise on sisterhood” (Collins) (May 82). May uses other novels of the era such as Sense and Sensibility, Wuthering Heights, and Frankenstein to support his point about Collins' potential focus on the brotherly bond. Collins separates these Victorian-inspired novels to provide another image of society's foundation on sisters. May argues that the very edifice that upholds the nineteenth-century standard of immaculate love of brothers “is the edifice that can be undermined by lawlessness and erotic intensity”; in other words, it can prevail over the family unit (May 82). Specifically in The Woman in White, Collins plays with the idea of ​​breaking social laws through the fluctuating relationship between Marian, Laura, and Walter Hartright (May 85). May states, “In sensation fiction, sisters are expected to conform to nineteenth-century conceptions of purity, constancy, and fidelity, both to other siblings and to the family in general” (May 82). Collins redefines sensation fiction – literature that elicits great adrenaline effects from its intense plots – through the “transgressive possibilities” of passion between sisters as they encounter the chaotic world of Rank and Power (Rubery) (May 84-85). In this novel, family dynamics are depicted through the sibling relationships between Marian and Laura, Laura and Anne Catherick, and Marian, Laura and Walter (May 83-84). May compares sibling relationships in The Woman in White to the correct Victorian image of a family to reaffirm her position on sororal importance. However, May also states that the families formed in this novel are sensational because “they are not families at all” (May 83). In the Fairlie family, the masculinized Marian serves as mother and sister to the feminized Laura Fairlie, the secret sister of the ghostly Anne Catherick (May 83-85, 89). The only possible father figure lies in Laura's uncle, MrFairlie; unfortunately, his extreme ego and conceit prevent him from interacting with society on a regular basis (May 83). As a result, Laura and Marian's relationship is even more strongly based on each other. May says that “the orphan sisters live in an autonomous world of love, loyalty, respect, and erotic fulfillment” (92). The sororal relationship seems like a happy relationship at the beginning of the novel because Laura and Marian rely completely on each other. As the book progresses, the two stepsisters are placed in quite different roles to see if their relationship will stand the test of temptation. Walter Hartright's Erotic Desires, Father's Law, and Victorian General Law expose these temptations (May 93). First, May thinks that Collins uses Walter Hartright in a very charming way to try to taint the image of the sisterhood. Because Walter is not only the protagonist of the novel, but also the narrator of the book; therefore, readers should read Collins' thoughts from a male perspective. Walter initially enters the story through meeting Laura's mentally confused sister, Anne Catherick (Collins). This first meeting, May declares, begins the exposition of the plot. Walter then goes to the Fairlie house and meets Marian. He is erotically attracted to Marian's bottom, but as soon as she reveals her masculine side, he retracts his desires. Yet he and Marian form a strong bond of “brotherhood” that grows deeper as the plot thickens (May 94). When Walter meets Laura, he is immediately attracted to her romantically and she returns his attraction. In this critique, May states that Laura and Walter's feelings for each other are perhaps destructive to Laura and Marian's relationship; they are "feelings that must necessarily arise between the two sisters" (May 92). Marian, May says, subtly combats the couple's hidden affection by announcing Laura's previous engagement to Sir Percival Glyde (May 92). Marian appreciates Walter for accepting her charge to leave their home to protect Laura's feelings, but she is also subtly attempting to save her sisterhood with Laura (Collins) (May 93). Second, Laura's marriage to Sir Glyde threatens what Marian has just fought against. against: separation from sister. The villain in this case comes from the Law of the Father, which Laura feels led to obey (May 93). In the Victorian lifestyle, obedience is required especially from women of rank (May 91) (Rubery). Laura's obedience to her father's dying wish overrides her desire to heed Anne's warning letter, Walter's feelings, and her own dislike of Sir Glyde (May 93). May says that Collins' image of the father's role in Laura's life shows the lack of purity in the family. The bond between sisters is at once more knowing and powerful than any other relationship, for although it is dangerous in its passion, it is very wise (May 90-92). Third, the Victorian general law of the time tests sororal connection. Using the example of Sir Glyde and Laura's marriage, May argues that the sisters' true nemesis lies in general injustice (May 87). Whether in the form of a man or a paper document, the desire for satisfaction in sisterhood against the rules of the world represents the constant battle of the sisterhood bond. In this case, Sir Glyde personifies injustice. He arrives, marries Laura, takes her away and leaves Marian to fight for Laura as she had already done in Walter's case (May 94). Anne also seeks justice for Laura, sending her a cryptic letter against her marriage to Glyde. Laura marries him again out of obedience to the lawcultural (May 93). However, May argues that this same cultural law reports the blissful sororal bond between Marian and Laura (May 94). The same relationship that attempted to ruin the bond between Laura and Marian's metaphorical family is the same one that creates a real family: Walter Hartright's marriage to Laura (May 94). Previously, when Marian, Walter and Laura lived in the slums, the sororal bond is affected by Marian and Walter's disturbing relationship with Laura: Laura is Marian's daughter and sister, who is Walter's wife and sister, father, brother and sister. lover of Laura, being at the same time husband and brother of Marian (Collins). May states that “incestuous relationships” are an image of untamed brotherly love, but ultimately sibling love “tames” through the form of a true family (May 84). May argues that relationships move from a state of total lack of control in the Victorian didactic sense to a “normal” state when the family becomes one (May 84). Collins uses these relationships to show the power of the sisterly bond, suggesting that it can transcend the laws of marriage, family, and culture. May states that Collins transforms the “Victorian vision of family happiness” by rightly eliminating the evils that fight against said vision and “incorporating those evils into the very structure of that bliss” (May 84). In Collins' mind, he allows Victorian family idealism to be threatened before sensationally triumphing in a new form of sibling love. Using abnormal family affairs, Collins goes against the purest form of the Victorian family (Rubery). Ultimately, Marian and Laura's relationship revives through Collins' fairytale ending and creates satisfaction for his critical readers who elevate family as the highest social position (Rubery) (May 84-85). With the cultural law comes the Victorian social classes. In this novel, Leila associates Collins' characterization of Marian and her resulting relationships with others as a break from social norms. Sir Percival Glyde and Laura are a good match in the eyes of society due to their similar rank in the social class structure, but Laura loves the bourgeois Walter Hartright. Laura also appreciates her half-sister, Anne Catherick, even though Anne is working class. The biggest break with Victorian culture, however, is in the relationship between Laura and Marian, because even though Marian is not part of any social class, Marian and Laura love each other in the face of life or death (May 88-89). May argues that victory over rank and power – that is, over cultural rules – comes from Walter's marriage to Laura and Marian's agreement to become an aunt to their children (May 88, 95-97). After carefully reading May's argument, her intelligent way of supporting her ideas with historical facts and evidence from the book makes her position extremely persuasive. He uses the 19th century Victorian model to contrast the ways in which Collins relates his own life to the lives of his characters (Rubery). In doing so, he establishes Collins as the author of the "sensation novel" that the Victorian age established him to be. His writing is considered radical due to the transformations in his family relationships; May takes advantage of these changes in his article. He conveniently states that he is making an "empirical claim" rather than a "tautological truth" at the forefront of his article, but he supports his claims with examples and facts from Victorian culture that make his claim truer than many others claim critics. . For example, in his discussion of class structure, he analyzes each major person in the novel to see if Marian's actions, 92).