int where thereis a network of roads, where `four roads met'. The number of directions inwhich he can travel mirrors the multi-faceted and intricate plot of WilkieCollins' novel. This importance of plot has become - rightly or wrongly - atrade mark of `sensational' fiction. A further aspect of this genre isfatalism, the predestined, the notion perhaps that is not mere chance thatAnne Catherick appears on Hartright's `lonely high-road' and not on the otherfour. The `characteristics' of the sensation novel which I have touchedupon superficially above have, critically speaking, prevented it beingbestowed with any notion of `realism'. Though I do not desire necessarily tochallenge the notion of sensationalism in the novel but I do wish to questionthe apparent `lack of realism' in The Woman In White. I hope therefore toillustrate the sensation paradox - that Collins' novel is bound in realism aswell as being `sensational'. I would like to suggest also that the result is thecreation of a new, higher realism, different to that of writers such as Eliotand Trollope. I believe it would be appropriate, initially, to define the traditionalconnotation of the term `realism'. The common view is that the main functionof realism in fiction is mimetic; that to be realistic is to attempt to conveyan accurate imitation of life as it is: we are supposed to be left with theimpression that these realistic characters have lived and breathed. I firstwant to demonstrate the degree to which The Woman in White defies thistraditional code of Victorian fictional realism. When reading Collins' novel we cannot fail to be struck by theintricacy of the plot. This is what grips us so, what makes us read on, whatforced Anthony Trollope to stay up all night to finish the book. It is thedesign and plot that is uppermost in our minds; we are not necessarilyconcerned about the feelings of Marian Halcombe or Walter Hartright. Undoubtedly in...
