The story of the Woman In Black has gone through several iterations and mediums since the publishing of the novel, by Susan Hill, in 1983. Since then, the original manuscript has been adapted to successful stage, radio and, most recently, movie versions, most met with widespread critical and commercial success. Though the plot has evolved through the years, the basic premise has not. Essentially, a young solicitor in the Victorian Era, Arthur Kipps, travels from London to the North of England for work, meeting at the town a mysterious woman dressed in black that petrifies the locals and wreaks havoc wherever she goes. Arthur spends a few nights at her dwelling place, Drablow Mansion, and neither he, nor his family, are ever the same. Many have commented on the similarity of The Woman in Black to a classic Gothic novel, and the author herself has acknowledged being inspired by the genre. Others are interested in how the story fits into the template of the classic Jamesian Ghost Story, named after the popular Victorian Horror writer, M.R. James. There’s a blurring of the line between the physical and the psychological that lends itself to both, and spices up an otherwise ordinary horror story.
Susan Hill, author of The Woman In Black.
M.R. James (1862-1936), was as renowned for his ghost stories, which shed many of the gothic cliches that had clung to the genre, obsolete carryovers from the previous century. He was interested in creating a story that functioned almost as a sort of stage; the actors, or characters, would be seen going about their ordinary business as the malevolent presence began to make itself known. This particular aspect of a Jamesian story is not, in my opinion, present in The Woman In Black, in either the book or the movie. When Arthur Kipps arrives at Crythin Gifford, no one is going about as usual. They are terrified. Before the story even starts, the “ghost” has made herself known. Another characteristic of James’s stories was a “character-full” setting; that is, well described, realistic, and full of named and interesting characters. Both versions of The Woman In Black (henceforth referred to as TWIB), have definitely filled this requirement. The gloom of Crythin Gifford is almost palpable, and among the townsfolk there are several named characters that we come to learn more about as the story progresses. A third requirement is some sort of naive, inquisitive scholar as a protagonist, the classic Victorian middle-class gentleman. Someone quite like James himself. This is another requirement easily met by both the book and movie. Arthur Kipps is very much a gentleman as well as a white-collar working man, curious and unfailingly polite. It is on the last tenet of a Jamesian tale that TWIP diverges from James. Monty James almost always included some sort of antiquitarian object in his stories, some musty old tome that would be dredged up by the protagonist and provoke the ghost. There is no such object in TWIB.
Monty James, (Montague James)
The difference between the literal and the psychological is a recurring theme in TWIB. Arthur Kipps, scholar though he is, can be an unreliable narrator. Is the rocking chair he sees truly inhabited by a ghost, or is he simply beginning to crack under the pressure. Still, the degree he can be trusted differs in the novel and the movie. Susan Hill seemed to think of The Woman in Black as more an aspect of one’s own imagination than anything, a specter any mother could identify with inhabiting the darkest reaches of our consciousness. Arthur, in the novel, does not see things so much as feel them. He feels the loss of the woman, the grief she feels after the violent death of her child. In the movie, the woman is very much real, and her presence is felt in the village. To take revenge for losing her own son, she appears in front of other’s children and lures them to a violent death. She snuffs out candles, slams doors, shuts windows: she is a physical threat.
A glimpse of the “woman in black” before she turned homicidal ghost.
So, is the movie a faithful adaptation of the book? In some ways, I would even argue most ways, yes. The characters are the same, the plot is left mostly intact, and the ominous, creepy feeling of the novel is left untouched. There are differences, some mentioned above; in the book, the woman in black isn’t directly killing children. Arthur Kipps has a different backstory in both. The endings are also very different. But, at their heart, both are just retelling a familiar horror story: young man is turned prematurely old after an experience with the supernatural that changes him and his circumstances irreversibly. M. R. James would be proud.
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