The Woman in White

The double—a character who resembles another character closely—is a common motif in Gothic fiction that often serves to trouble the notion of identity as something fixed and stable. A character’s double often reveals submerged aspects of their own nature or hints at what they could be in other circumstances. The Gothic double has its roots in folklore, in which encountering doubles often presages disaster.

Both these elements of the double motif are at play in The Woman in White. The close resemblance between Laura and Anne plays a role in foreshadowing disaster, though the final explanation turns out to be mundane: The two women are half-sisters and share a father. Nevertheless, the effect is uncanny and hints that something mysterious and perhaps supernatural is afoot. It particularly serves to hint at the disaster that awaits Laura. After her encounter with her double, Laura reports that she felt as though she were looking in a mirror and was therefore unnerved by Anne’s physical frailty. The resemblance deepens through Laura’s hardship and illness, making this moment of recognition one that foreshadows Laura’s future. The doubling also creates ambiguity surrounding the identity of the woman Marian rescues from the psychiatric hospital, making the motif central to the novel’s exploration of