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• The Woman in Black is a ghost story written by Susan Hill. It was published in 1983 but is set in the Edwardian era.

• The story is told by the main character, Arthur Kipps. 30 years ago, Arthur encountered a vengeful ghost when he visited a place called Eel Marsh House.

• The Woman in Black is a Gothic story full of suspense and surprises.

Watch this video to learn more about the plot, characters and themes in The Woman in Black by Susan Hill.

Did you know?

The play adaptation of The Woman in Black has been showing in London's West End since 1989.

Arthur Kipps and his family are telling ghost stories. Arthur cannot bring himself to tell them his own true story so he writes it down.

In the story, Arthur is a young lawyer and one of his clients, Alice Drablow, has died. He travels to Crythin Gifford for the funeral where he sees a strange woman dressed all in black.

Keckwick, a local driver, takes Arthur across the causeway to Eel Marsh House. He leaves him there to sort through some paperwork. A thick mist appears and Arthur hears the terrible sounds of an accident but cannot see what is happening. Keckwick returns and insists that Arthur does not stay at the house overnight.

The next day, Arthur returns to Eel Marsh House to continue working. He stays overnight and borrows a dog called Spider for company from Samuel Daily, a local landowner.

Overnight, Arthur and Spider are haunted by sounds of movement in the house. Arthur finds an open door that had previously been locked. Inside is a nursery with a rocking chair that is still rocking, as if someone has just left.

Early the next morning, Daily arrives to collect them. Arthur notices that the nursery has been destroyed. Daily tells Arthur the story of the Woman in Black. She is the ghost of Mrs Drablow’s sister, Jennet, whose child was taken away from her. Everyone in the village is terrified of seeing her because each time she is seen, a child dies suddenly.

Arthur returns home and marries Stella. A year later, he is with Stella and their young child on a pony and trap when Arthur sees the Woman in Black again. Moments later, his wife and child have a terrible accident which kills them both.

Activity

Arthur Kipps

At the start of the book, Arthur is in his mid-fifties and living with his second wife and stepchildren.

However, the events of the book took place when he was in his early twenties and working for a law firm in London.

His encounters with the Woman in Black change him.

Jennet Humfrye (the Woman in Black)

Jennet Humfrye was the sister of Alice Drablow, who lived in Eel Marsh House.

Since Jennet's death, she has haunted the house as the ghostly Woman in Black.

A child dies soon after each sighting of the ghost. Arthur sees the Woman in Black at the end of the book, causing the death of his son.

Samuel Daily

Samuel Daily is a landowner living close to Eel Marsh House. He is kind, generous and worries about Arthur. He lets Arthur borrow his dog, Spider, for company. Samuel tells Arthur the full story about the Woman in Black.

Keckwick

Keckwick is a local driver and is reliable. He knows the truth about the Woman in Black. He is quiet, although does try to warn Arthur not to stay at the house overnight.

Alice Drablow

Alice Drablow lived at Eel Marsh House before she died. She is Jennet's sister. She and her husband adopted Jennet’s son, Nathanial, and were responsible for him when he died in the pony and trap accident on the causeway. Alice’s funeral brings Arthur to Eel Marsh House.

Stella

Arthur is engaged to Stella when he travels to Eel Marsh House. They marry after he returns and have a baby. Stella and the baby both die at the end of the book when Arthur sees the Woman in Black again.

Activity

Themes are the main ideas that appear repeatedly in a novel. Some of the important themes in The Woman in Black are:

• Fear
• Haunting
• Isolation

Fear creates strong, physical reactions in the characters. For example, Arthur is a confident and sensible young man when he arrives at Eel Marsh House. At first, he is determined to face his fear and find out who the Woman in Black really is, but by the end of the book he is ill and weak because of his terror.

At different points in the book, Arthur is paralysed, passes out and becomes feverish due to fear. Other characters seem to freeze and are unable to speak when the subject of the Woman in Black comes up. Even Spider, the dog, growls and trembles when the ghost is near.

There are a few different examples of haunting in The Woman in Black.

1. The ghost of Jennet Humfrye haunts Eel Marsh House, taking revenge for the loss of her child by causing the deaths of other children. She appears to Arthur at the funeral, makes disturbing noises and destroys items of furniture around Eel Marsh House, especially in the nursery because this is the room most closely connected with her son.

2. The Woman in Black has a lasting effect on Arthur. For the rest of his life he is haunted by this experience, which resulted in the deaths of his first wife and child.

3. Jennet Humfrye, the Woman in Black, is a haunted character. She is haunted by the death of her son. The ghost recreates the sounds of the accident that killed her son.

Isolated settings and characters are common in Gothic stories.

Most of the events in the story take place in Crythin Gifford, a village a long way from London. Travelling to this place isolates Arthur from everyone he knows.

Eel Marsh House itself is also isolated. It is surrounded by marshland and can only be reached by a causeway which gets cut off at high tide and is sometimes impassable due to thick sea mists.

Activity

Writers choose words and phrases carefully when they write. Readers can look closely at texts to think about how and why the writer made these choices.

First-person narrator

The author, Susan Hill, writes using a first-person narrative voice. This means it is told in Arthur's voice and from his point of view. It allows the reader to understand how he feels as he sees and finds out more about the Woman in Black.

In spite of my intense fear and sense of shock, I was consumed with the desire to find out exactly who it was that I had seen…

Symbols

A symbol is an object that is used throughout a story and represents a bigger idea. An important symbol in The Woman in Black is the pony and trap which symbolises the past and the haunting that makes this past impossible to escape.

Structure refers to how written text is organised – the way the story is ordered and shaped.

Frame narrative

Susan Hill uses a frame narrative in The Woman in Black. A frame narrative is a story within a story. Hill starts and ends with Arthur as an older man – this is the "frame".

Within this frame, Arthur tells the reader what happened to him when he was younger, which is the main narrative.

There is also a third narrative embedded inside the main narrative. Arthur uncovers the story of Jennet Humfrye and her son through paperwork at Eel Marsh House and also through a conversation with Samuel Daily.

Activity

The context in which a novel was written can sometimes reveal more about its themes, message and meaning.

Gothic literature

The Woman in Black is a Gothic story. Gothic stories usually create an atmosphere of tension and suspense for the reader using psychological techniques rather than relying on gore and violence. Authors of Gothic stories often use isolated settings and include mysterious or supernatural events. All of these things are true of The Woman in Black.

You can find out more about Gothic stories in this Bitesize Gothic literature guide.

Edwardian society

Although written in 1983, The Woman in Black is set in the Edwardian era.

In Edwardian society, women were not expected to have romantic relationships outside of marriage. If a woman became pregnant, her family would either disown her or have the child put up for adoption. This explains why Jennet Humfrye was forced to give up her son.